THE  LIFE 
»  OF  THE 
SPIRlTr 

BY  HAMILTON 
WRIGHriifc^ 
S^k*Jf  MABIB 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


r" 


GIFT   OF   CAPT.   AND    MRS. 
PAUL   MCBRIDE  PERIGORD 


M^^^  ^/f  ^/^^ 


UNIVERSITY  of  CALIFORNIA 
AT 
LOS  ANGELES     ^ 
LIBRARY 


\ 


THE    LIFE    OF    THE    SPIRIT 


THE   LIFE   OF   THE 
SPIRIT  ^  ^  ^  ^    BY  ^\< 

HAMILTON  WRIGHT  MABIE 


NEW    YORK:     PUBLISHED    BY 

DODD,  MEAD  AND   COMPANY 
MDCCCXCIX 


i  '^  ^-»  ^  2  8 


Copyright,  1S9S,  1899, 
By  The  Outlook  Company. 

Copyright,  1899, 
By  Uodd,  Mead  and  Company. 


SSnibersitg  ^Sress: 
John  Wilson  and  Son,  Cambridge,  U.S.A. 


TO 

GEORGE    A.    GORDON 

"The  race  must  become  partner  in  the  moral   enterprise, 
fellow-worker  witli  the  universe  at  its  ethical  task,  if  its  heart 

of  rhythm   and   boul  of  fire  are  to  stand  fully  revealed" 


Contents 


Chapter  Page 

I.    Sunday  Morning i 

II.    The  Religious  Conception  of 

Life 9 

III.  The  Consciousness  of  Sin      .  18 

IV.  Not  Rejection,  but  Redemp- 

tion      26 

V.    The  Christmas  Vision  ...  36 
VI.    The  Man  Christ  Jesus     .     .  43 
VIL    Half-Truths  AND  THE  Truth  51 
VIII.    Repose    in  Work  and  Strife  59 
IX.    Revelation  through  Charac- 
ter        67 

X.    The  World  of  Divine  Oppor- 
tunity       73 

XI.    The   Hills  of  God    .     .  .80 

XII.    The    Companionship    of    the 

Sky 86 

XIII.   The  Sea  is  His 95 

vii 


Contents 


Chapter 

XIV.    In  Troubled  Times     . 
XV.    In  Times  of  Change  . 
XVI.    The  Root  of  Courage 
XVII.    Not     Renunciation,     hut 

Co-operation  . 
XVIII.    The  Soul  of  Goodness 
XIX.    Retreats  of  the  Spirit 

XX.   Sacrifice 

XXI.    The  Pain  of  Limitation 
XXII.    The  Way  of  Work    . 

XXIII.  Love  of  Country   . 

XXIV.  Bearing  the  Burden  . 
XXV.    The  Spirit  of  Helpfulness 

XXVI.    Courage  the  Only  Safety 
XXVII.    The     Incompleteness     of 

Life 

XXVIII.    A  Spiritual  Opportunity 
XXIX.    Thanksgiving 

XXX.  Intimations    of    the     Un- 

seen   

XXXI.  Character  and  Fate  . 
XXXII.    The  Pains  of  Growth 

XXXIII.    The    Sorrow    of   Knowl- 
edge ....... 

viii 


Page 
104 
III 
118 

126 

133 

138 

144 

151 
160 
168 

177 
185 
194 

202 
212 
217 

222 
231 
241 

250 


Contents 

Chapter 

Page 

XXXIV. 

Some    Sources    of    Pessi- 

mism       

262 

XXXV. 

Health   and  Courage    . 

272 

XXXVI. 

The  Ideal  in  the  Actual 

280 

XXXVII. 

The  Loneliness  of  Life  . 

290 

XXXVIII. 

The  Moral  Order  .     . 

300 

XXXIX. 

Religion  Out-of-Doors  . 

309 

XL. 

The  Word  in  the  Book 

316 

XLI. 

The  Record   in  Art 

325 

XLII. 

Beauty  AND  Immortality 

333 

XLIII. 

The  Incident  of  Death 

345 

XLIV. 

Prophecies  of  Easter     . 

353 

IX 


Life  of  the  Spirit 
9 

Chapter  I 

Sunday  Morning 

THE  hush  that  falls  on  the  fields 
and  village  streets  on  a  Sunday 
morning  in  summer  seems  to  announce 
the  presence  of  the  Spirit  of  God  in  some 
unusual  sense.  The  activities  of  the 
world,  its  strife,  its  turbulence  and  pas- 
sion, have  vanished  in  the  holy  silence 
which  rests  upon  the  earth  and  makes 
it  one  vast  and  sacred  place  of  worship. 
One  instinctively  recalls  that  beautiful 
phrase  which  always  brings  a  vision  of 
the  rest  of  heaven  with  it — the  peace 
of  God :  a  peace  which  is  not  an  armis- 
tice, but  an  eternal  concord ;  not  a  forced 
reconciliation,   but    that   deep    and    final 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

harmony  which  comes  of  complete  unity 
of  feeling  and  action ;  a  peace  which 
rests  on  the  everlasting  foundations  of 
righteousness,  and  which  is  evidenced  by 
harmony  of  purpose  with  action,  of  power 
with  spirit.  Our  peace  is  often  a  brief 
cessation  of  struggle  between  the  con- 
tending forces  within  us,  or  a  little  in- 
terval snatched  from  the  contest  with 
obstacles  and  adverse  conditions  which 
make  our  days  arduous  and  our  nights 
wearisome.  But  God's  peace  is  the 
peace  of  final  conquest,  of  lasting  recon- 
ciliation, of  complete  adjustment.  It  is, 
when  it  rests  on  the  early  Sunday  morn- 
ing, a  foretaste  of  the  eternal  repose ;  a 
repose  not  of  inaction,  but  of  perfect 
adaptation  to  tasks  and  joys,  and  of  en- 
tire surrender  of  the  will  to  the  larger 
intelligence  which  makes  it  a  force  of 
growth  rather  than  a  force  of  self-assertion. 
An  old  house  has  an  atmosphere  which 
cannot  be  carried  into  a  new  house. 
The  walls  have  heard  voices  now  gone 
silent ;  the  halls  have  echoed  footfalls  no 


Sunday  Morning 

longer  audible ;  the  roof  has  protected  a 
rich  and  varied  life  of  joy  and  sorrow, 
of  work  and  rest,  which  has  passed  on 
like  a  river  into  other  countries  and  flows 
on  under  other  trees  and  skies.  But  this 
vanished  life  has  left  its  impress  on  the 
old  house ;  has  humanized  it  and  over- 
laid it  with  all  manner  of  sacred  associa- 
tions ;  so  that,  in  a  very  real  way,  the 
old  life  goes  on  within  the  walls  and 
keeps  the  old  house  still  an  old  home. 
In  like  manner,  the  generations  that  have 
done  their  work  and  gone  to  their  rest 
still  live  in  the  world  which  has  passed 
out  of  their  possession  into  ours  ;  so  that 
the  great  human  family  remains  unbroken 
and  continuous,  and  the  fathers  still 
touch  the  sons  who  have  come  into  their 
places.  We  do  not  vanish  from  the 
earth  like  summer  clouds  that  leave  no 
trace  behind ;  we  work  ourselves  into 
nature  and  society,  and  leave  something 
of  ourselves  in  this  home  of  our  human 
experience.  The  vanished  generations 
live  with  us  and  in  us  in  ways  past  our 
3 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

knowledge  ;  we  are  born  into  the  earth 
they  have  made  fruitful  by  their  toil,  and 
the  civilization  they  have  builded  like  a 
great,  invisible  house  over  our  heads. 
They  have  overlaid  the  world  with  asso- 
ciations which  enrich  and  warm  and 
humanize  it;  so  that,  in  a  very  true  sense, 
the  great  spirits  who  have  departed  this 
life  are  still  with  us  in  the  strife  of  our 
earthly  days. 

This  continuity  of  historic  life,  this 
unbroken  current  of  human  action  and 
emotion,  this  fathomless  and  silent  stream 
of  spiritual  experience,  become  real  to  us 
in  the  peace  of  Sunday  morning.  For 
we  are  in  touch,  not  with  one  short  day 
plucked  from  the  turmoil  of  the  week, 
but  with  all  the  Sundays  on  which  men 
have  rested  from  their  labours  since  time 
began.  The  day  not  only  detaches  it- 
self, to  our  thought,  from  all  working 
days,  but  unites  itself  with  all  the  days  of 
rest  that  have  glowed  and  faded  under 
these  skies.  In  the  sweet  hush  of  the 
early  hours,  the  trees  untouched  by  the 
4 


Sunday  Morning 

wind  but  vocal  with  the  songs  of  birds 
hidden  or  flitting  from  branch  to  branch, 
the  fields  sweet  and  fragrant  as  if  it  were 
always  morning,  one  becomes  conscious 
of  the  unbroken  succession  of  holy  days 
which  stretches  away  like  a  great  high- 
way to  the  very  beginnings  of  history. 
Along  that  highway  how  many  genera- 
tions have  walked  with  prayer  and  praise 
on  their  lips  and  with  faith  and  love  in 
their  hearts  !  The  fellowship  of  the 
good,  the  pure,  and  the  aspiring  becomes 
real  to  us  in  that  thought,  and  we  enter 
into  the  eternal  communion  of  the  saints. 
Divisions  of  time,  differences  of  race, 
fade  out  of  our  sight ;  we  feel  the  one- 
ness of  humanity,  the  continuity  of  the 
great  human  family,  and  the  unity  of  life. 
So  there  enters  into  our  thought  the 
peace  of  one  of  those  vast  outlooks  in 
which  the  fields  fade  into  the  landscape 
and  the  strifes  and  divisions  of  men  are 
lost  in  a  vision  of  their  larger  relation- 
ships. "  The  old  Sabbath,  or  Seventh 
Day,"  says  Emerson,  "  white  with  the 
S 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

religions  of  unknown  thousands  of  years, 
when  this  hallowed  hour  dawns  out  of 
the  deep  —  a  clean  page,  which  the  wise 
may  inscribe  with  truth,  whilst  the 
savage  scrawls  it  with  fetishes  —  the 
cathedral  music  of  history  breathes 
through  it  a  psalm  to  our  solitude." 

It  is  true  that  to  the  religious  nature 
all  days  are  holy  and  all  places  sacred, 
but  we  are  immensely  helped  by  fellow- 
ship and  association  ;  and  the  immemo- 
rial consecration  of  Sunday  to  rest  and 
worship  is,  aside  from  all  other  things 
which  set  it  apart  from  other  days,  a 
great  aid  to  the  life  of  the  spirit.  In  the 
great  crises  of  life  one  kneels  in  profound 
loneliness;  but  it  is  the  loneliness  of  in- 
dividual experience,  not  of  individual 
destiny.  We  are  all  travelling  the  same 
road,  though  we  are  often  so  widely 
separated  that  we  seem  to  be  entirely 
isolated;  we  are  all  drinking  of  the  same 
cup  of  sorrow,  though  it  is  often  held  to 
our  lips  when  the  wine  of  joy  seems  to 
be  at  the  lips  of  others.  Every  man  has 
6 


Sunday  Morning 

his  own  hidden  and  incommunicable  life 
with  God,  but  this  secret  fellowship  is  a 
rill  which  flows  into  and  swells  the  uni- 
versal fellowship.  We  need  to  feel,  not 
only  the  community  of  our  needs  and 
sorrows,  but  the  community  of  our  hopes 
and  worship.  We  need  not  only  our 
own  silent  hours  and  quiet  places  ;  we 
need  also  the  vast  quiet  of  Sunday  morn- 
ing, the  repose  of  universal  rest  and  of 
immemorial  worship.  The  calm  of  those 
fresh  and  fragrant  hours  is  no  figment  of 
the  imagination  ;  it  is  a  kind  of  spiritual- 
ization  of  Nature ;  it  is  a  symbol  of  that 
peace  of  God  which  passes  understanding. 
If  we  open  our  souls  to  its  silent  influ- 
ence, it  wins  us  away  from  ourselves  into 
a  sense  of  the  universal  life  of  man  in 
God  ;  it  frees  us  from  the  care  and  an- 
xiety of  our  personal  fortunes  and  takes 
us  into  the  consciousness  of  an  all- 
embracing  beneficence  ;  it  stills  the  waves 
of  the  shallow  seas  of  our  own  emotions 
with  the  vision  of  that  calm  figure  to 
whose  feet  the  surging  waters  are  as  the 
7 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

solid  earth.  The  quiet  of  Sunday  morn- 
ing, sweet  with  the  breath  of  the  meadows 
and  the  music  of  the  birds,  is  sweet  also 
with  the  presence  of  that  peace  which 
abides  beyond  our  struggles,  of  that  un- 
broken life  and  worship  which  banish  our 
discords  and  divisions,  of  that  divine 
seeking  for  God  which  all  men  have 
shared  according  to  their  knowledge,  and 
which  gives  the  sorrowful  history  of  man 
a  touch  of  divine  beauty  and  prophecy. 


chapter  II 

The  Religious  Conception  of  Life 

IT  is  impossible  to  define  religion 
completely,  but  perhaps  the  nearest 
approach  to  an  adequate  definition  is 
contained  in  the  phrase,  "religion  is 
the  life  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man." 
These  words  go  to  the  heart  of  the 
matter,  for  they  detach  the  idea  of 
religion  from  everything  that  limits  it 
or  identifies  it  with  special  rite,  creed, 
service  or  knowledge.  The  emphasis 
rests  where  it  belongs,  on  life  ;  not  on 
doctrine,  organization,  or  particular  re- 
velation. Religion  existed  before  the 
first  sentence  of  the  Bible  was  penned, 
before  the  first  priest  was  ordained  or 
the  first  church  consecrated.  It  rests 
on  none  of  these  instrumentalities,  al- 
though it  uses  all  of  them  ;  it  is  older, 
9 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

deeper,  and  more  comprehensive  than  any 
or  all  of  them.  It  transcends  not  only 
all  historical  but  all  possible  statements 
of  doctrine.  Confessions,  creeds,  and  the 
Church  are  essential  historical  manifesta- 
tions of  the  religious  life  of  man  ;  they 
are  channels  of  grace  and  means  of  in- 
spiration, instruction,  and  dissemination 
of  truth  ;  but  they  neither  constitute 
nor  compass  religion.  It  was  in  the 
world  before  them,  and  its  complete  re- 
velation will  not  be  made  until  they 
have  passed  away.  They  are  accom- 
modations to  man's  infirmity  and  need  ; 
they  are  not  of  the  essence  of  the  truth 
to  which  they  witness  and  of  which  they 
are  the  servants. 

The  real  measure  of  the  religious 
spirit  in  a  man  is  not,  as  so  many  medi- 
aeval teachers  believed,  absorption  in 
devotion  and  continual  consciousness  of 
sin  ;  it  is  rather  the  keenness  and  com- 
pleteness of  one's  consciousness  of  the 
presence  of  God  in  all  things,  and  of 
the  revelation  of  God  through  all  things. 


The  Religious  Conception  of  Life 

One  often  meets  devout  people  whose 
sense  of  the  presence  of  God  seems  to 
be  almost  entirely  historic ;  they  believe 
that  God  was  with  Moses  and  with  the 
Israelites  in  their  wanderings,  and  that 
over  those  wayward  children  and  over 
their  confused  and  painful  journeyings 
a  divine  purpose  presided ;  but  in  the 
world  of  to-day  they  see  on  every  side 
the  evidences  of  the  activity  of  an  evil 
spirit,  and  only  here  and  there  the  evi- 
dences of  a  divine  order  and  control 
of  affairs.  Carlyle,  whose  historic  im- 
agination was  masterful,  expressed  pas- 
sionately in  his  last  years  the  longing 
that  God  would  speak  again  !  He  could 
hear  the  divine  voice  speaking  in  the 
accents  of  Knox,  Luther,  and  Crom- 
well ;  he  could  not  hear  it  in  the  tones 
of  Maurice,  Stanley,  or  Bright.  It 
seemed  to  him  as  if  God  had  vanished 
out  of  human  history  when  the  rugged 
soul  of  Cromwell  took  its  flight.  There 
are  hosts  of  devout  people  who  believe 
in  a  past  God,  but  who  have  very  slight 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

hold  on  faith  in  a  present  God.  Older 
peoples  seem  to  them  to  have  been 
divinely  led,  their  own  people  to  stumble 
on  blindly  and  in  a  helpless  confusion 
of  aims  and  ideals  ;  other  ages  seem  to 
them  to  have  been  sacred,  this  age  seems 
devoid  of  divine  recognition. 

And  God  is  not  only  limited  in  time, 
but  he  is  also  limited  in  the  instruments 
which  he  uses.  He  made  the  Jews  the 
channels  of  his  revelation  of  himself, 
say  many  in  attitude  and  spirit,  if  not  in 
words  ;  but  the  Egyptian,  the  Phoenician, 
the  Greek,  and  the  Roman  worked  out  a 
purely  human  destiny  in  a  purely  human 
way.  They  had  no  inspiration  from  the 
divine  spirit,  and  they  accomplished  no 
revelation  of  the  divine  nature.  The 
history  of  the  Jew  is  therefore  sacred 
history,  while  the  history  of  the  Greek 
is  profane  history.  It  is  as  if  one  should 
discriminate  between  the  children  of  the 
same  family,  and  declare  that  one  son 
bore  the  image  of  his  father,  had  his 
love,  and  reflected  his  character,  but  that 


The  Religious  Conception  of  Life 

all  the  others  were  aliens  and  strangers, 
cut  off  from  participation  in  the  nature 
which  was  a  common  inheritance,  and  in 
the  love  which  had  its  indestructible  root 
in  the  relationship,  apart  from  all  differ- 
ences of  gift  or  desert.  Devout  and 
self-sacrificing  souls  have  believed  in  a 
little  current  of  divine  influence  flowing 
through  a  sea  of  corruption,  in  a  chosen 
people  saved  from  a  vast  host  disin- 
herited and  rejected  ;  but  to  a  profoundly 
religious  nature  such  a  faith  is  to-day  in- 
credible. It  is  worse  than  a  partial 
view ;  it  is  a  kind  of  atheism  ;  it  sets 
about  the  divine  love  the  narrow  limits 
of  the  insight,  intelligence,  and  capacity 
which  restrict  human  afi^ection ;  it  im- 
putes to  the  divine  nature  the  confused 
and  provisional  character  of  human 
motives. 

And  this  limitation  is  imposed  on  God 
not  only  in  matters  of  time  and  historical 
manifestation  ;  it  is  also  imposed  on  the 
revelation  of  truth.  God  reveals  him- 
self, say  many  devout  people,  exclusively 
^3 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

through  the  Bible  and  the  Church ! 
These,  they  say,  are  divine  channels  of 
communication ;  all  other  channels  are 
human.  It  is  as  if,  in  forming  our  im- 
pression of  a  man's  nature  and  life,  we 
should  take  into  account  the  books  he 
has  written  and  the  manner  of  his  wor- 
ship, and  ignore  his  way  of  living,  his 
attitude  toward  his  fellows,  his  conversa- 
tion, his  family  and  community  life,  his 
home,  his  dress,  his  manners  !  In  forming 
our  judgment  of  a  man's  life  and  charac- 
ter, we  include  all  his  activities,  his  habits, 
and  his  tastes  ;  because,  while  certain 
things  reveal  him  more  distinctly  than 
others,  everything  he  is  or  does  partakes 
of  his  personality  and  discloses  it.  The 
man  is  as  much  in  his  home  as  in  his  pub- 
lic utterances,  as  much  in  his  selection  of 
friends  and  his  treatment  of  them  as  in 
his  religious  habits.  In  like  manner,  God 
is  not  only  in  the  revelation  of  himself 
made  through  the  lips  of  prophets  and  in 
the  history  and  symbolism  of  churches, 
but  also  in  the  sublime  house  he  has 
14 


The  Religious  Conception  of  Life 

builded  for  man  to  live  in,  in  the  laws 
which  regulate  man's  life,  and  in  the  uses, 
the  resources,  and  the  possibilities  of  that 
life.  God  is  as  truly  in  nature  as  in  the 
soul  of  the  prophet,  and  truth  of  science 
is  therefore  as  divine  and  authoritative  as 
truth  of  Holy  Scripture.  God  is  also  as 
distinctly  revealed  in  human  history  as  in 
vision  and  prophecy  ;  indeed,  a  large  part 
of  the  Old  Testament  is  neither  more 
nor  less  than  current  history  interpreted 
from  the  standpoint  of  divine  provi- 
dence. The  history  of  the  last  ten  years 
contains  a  disclosure  of  the  divine  pur- 
pose as  authoritative,  if  we  have  the 
prophetic  soul  to  discern  it.  God  is  also 
in  all  forms  of  art,  of  thought,  of  true  and 
wholesome  activity.  The  material  uni- 
verse, the  history,  the  life  and  the 
soul  of  man  cannot  contain  the  divine 
spirit  nor  complete  its  revelation.  God 
is  in  all  good  things,  although  all  good 
things  together  do  not  contain  him.  The 
divine  spirit,  says  Clement  of  Alexandria, 
was  poured  first  on  the  heads  of  the  Jew- 
15 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

ish  priesthood,  and  ran  down  thence  even 
to  the  borders  of  the  garments  of  Greek 
philosophy. 

The  measure  of  the  possession  of  the 
religious  spirit,  from  this  standpoint,  is 
the  breadth  and  depth  of  a  man's  con- 
sciousness of  God's  presence  and  power 
in  the  world  ;  and  the  measure  of  a  man's 
faith  is  his  ability  to  realize  God  in  the 
whole  world  about  him ;  in  the  forces 
and  forms  of  nature,  in  the  relationships 
and  occupations  of  man,  in  the  great  and 
small  movements  of  history.  The  mystic 
evades  the  tremendous  difficulties  which 
confront  faith  in  the  presence  of  the  ap- 
parent contradictions  and  confusions  of 
the  world  by  withdrawing  into  himself 
and  becoming  absorbed  in  secret  medi- 
tation ;  forgetting  that  he  who  flees  from 
the  world  confesses  that  the  world  is  too 
strong  for  him.  The  ritualist  limits  the 
divine  grace  to  a  few  channels,  and  gives 
up  the  other  great  courses  through  which 
the  divine  inspiration  and  strength  flow 
into  human  lives.  Both  methods  are 
i6 


The  Religious  Conception  of  Life 

partial  and  divisive ;  and  so  far  as  they 
are  partial  and  divisive  they  are  tainted 
with  atheism.  They  confess  the  presence 
of  God  in  a  few  things,  they  deny  it  in 
many  things.  The  root  of  all  evil  in 
theology,  in  worship,  and  in  life  is  athe- 
ism. Our  faith  is  too  often  like  a  tiny 
lantern  held  by  a  traveller  in  a  dark  night, 
which  illumines  a  little  path  at  the  feet ; 
it  is  not  like  a  sun  which  lifts  a  whole 
world  into  light.  The  logic  of  the  situ- 
ation is  inexorable  :  if  there  is  a  God,  all 
things  must  reveal  him,  and  all  right 
activities  and  forms  of  life  must  flow  from 
him  and  disclose  his  presence.  To  seize 
this  great  truth  is  to  gain  the  fundamental 
religious  conception  of  the  universe,  and 
of  the  life  of  man  in  it. 


17 


Chapter  III 

The  Consciousness  of  Sin 

THE  words  which  open  the  solemn 
invocation  of  the  Litany  have,  at 
times,  an  awful  meaning  for  all  those 
who  are  sensitive  to  spiritual  conditions. 
While  it  is  true  that  the  attitude  of 
obsequious  self-depreciation,  which  once 
found  constant  expression  in  hymn  and 
prayer,  is  not  only  unwholesome  but 
antagonistic  to  the  highest  conception  of 
God  and  man,  it  is  also  true  that  they 
who  know  themselves  know  all  the  bit- 
terness of  sorrow  and  repentance  con- 
densed in  the  familiar  words  ot  the 
Litany  ;  for,  in  the  light  of  conscience, 
we  are  all,  at  times,  in  fact  and  thought, 
"miserable  sinners."  The  consciousness 
of  sinfulness  and  guilt  has  been  shared 
by  all  aspiring  and  noble  souls  since  time 
began ;  it  has  been  expressed  more  or 
18 


The  Consciousness  of  Sin 

less  clearly  in  every  religion ;  it  has  been 
part  of  every  religious  experience.  When 
races  have  lacked  it,  or  religions  have 
attached  secondary  importance  and  given 
subordinate  place  to  it,  the  depths  of  ex- 
perience have  not  been  sounded  nor  the 
profounder  meaning  of  religion  grasped. 
The  very  exaggeration  of  the  sense  of 
sinfulness,  to  which  both  the  mediaeval 
Catholic  and  the  more  modern  Puritan 
were  so  prone,  bears  testimony  to  the 
deep  and  abiding  feeling  of  unworthiness 
which  has  not  only  been  the  heritage  of 
all  spiritually-minded  people,  but  which 
is  always  developed  in  the  individual 
when  the  spiritual  life  is  awakened.  Men 
have  come  to  feel  that  whoever  lacks  the 
consciousness,  not  only  of  imperfect  de- 
velopment, but  of  individual  transgres- 
sion, has  failed  to  touch  life  at  its  heart, 
or  to  penetrate  the  profounder  meaning 
of  religion.  The  Cross  remains  the 
eternal  symbol  of  the  depth  and  reality 
of  sin,  not  only  in  the  world,  but  in  the 
Christian  consciousness. 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

The  distrust  of  the  spiritual  insight  of 
the  man  who  touches  the  subject  with  a 
hght  hand,  who  finds  it  easy  to  explain, 
or  fails  to  find  great  significance  in  it,  is 
well  founded;  for  it  is  a  law  of  the  spir- 
itual life  that  the  finer  and  more  com- 
plete the  unfolding  of  that  life  becomes, 
the  keener  the  sense  of  the  tendency  to 
sin  becomes.  Sin  grows  repulsive  in 
exact  proportion  to  the  development  of 
the  spiritual  nature.  As  the  most  awful 
penalty  of  transgression  is  not  any  form 
of  external  punishment,  but  the  deterio- 
ration of  the  soul  which  offends,  until  it 
loses  its  sensitiveness  to  the  real  character 
of  sin,  so  the  highest  reward  of  spiritual 
endeavour  and  growth  is  a  constant  uplift- 
ing of  moral  standards  and  a  growing 
ability  to  look  into  the  very  heart  of  sin 
through  all  the  disguises  which  it  wears. 
Men  are  spiritually  strong  in  exact  pro- 
portion to  their  hatred  of  sin;  the  spirit- 
ual leaders  and  heroes  know  its  hidden 
character ;  they  loathe  it,  and  they  are  in 
uncompromising   and   eternal  enmity   to 


The  Consciousness  of  Sin 

it.  They  do  not  need  to  be  told  that  all 
forms  of  religion  which  ignore  or  touch 
it  lightly  are  of  necessity  superficial  and 
unspiritual  ;  it  is  part  of  their  deepest 
conviction  that  the  greater  the  reality  of 
religion,  the  keener  and  more  constant 
the  sense  of  the  reality  of  sin.  There 
was  a  profound  meaning  in  the  comment 
on  Socrates  which  Matthew  Arnold  puts 
into  the  mouth  of  Carlyle,  that  he  was 
too  much  at  ease  in  Sion.  A  man  who 
knows  the  world  cannot  be  wholly  at 
ease ;  he  may  have  a  deep  repose  of 
spirit,  but  he  sees  about  him  that  with 
v/hich  he  must  wage  relentless  war.  Re- 
pose we  may  possess  even  in  the  most 
arduous  toil ;  ease  we  can  never  have 
while  we  are  surrounded  by  conditions 
which  are  hostile  to  our  highest  life.  For 
this  reason  Dante,  notwithstanding  a 
certain  narrowness  of  temper,  impresses 
the  world  as  an  essentially  higher  nature 
than  Goethe,  notwithstanding  the  im- 
mense breadth  and  productivitv  of  the 
great  German.     Dante  was  not,  it  is  pos- 

21 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

sible,  a  wholly  stainless  man,  but  he  came 
to  see  sin  with  a  clearness  which  no  other 
human  soul  has  surpassed,  and  to  hate  it 
with  all  the  intensity  of  his  passionate 
soul.  The  "Divine  Comedy"  is  very 
far  removed  from  us  in  its  forms  and 
phrases,  but  the  deepest  impression  we 
get  from  it  is  the  impression  of  reality. 
Under  the  terrible  light  which  Dante 
holds  aloft  in  the  Inferno,  sin  is  no 
matter  of  imperfect  development;  it  is 
an  appalling  and  loathsome  reality.  Its 
hideousness  becomes  concrete  in  a  thou- 
sand repulsive  forms,  and,  its  disguises  all 
sternly  stripped  from  it,  we  see  its  naked 
deformity  and  realize  how  corrupting, 
and  unspeakably  degrading  it  is. 

The  insight  of  the  great  artists,  even 
when  divorced  from  or  indifferent  to  the 
moral  aspects  of  life,  has  detected  the 
secret  nature  of  sin  quite  as  unerringly  as 
the  insight  of  the  men  of  spiritual  genius. 
The  drama,  from  the  earliest  to  the  latest 
times,  abounds  in  expositions  of  its  in- 
herent corrupting  and  destructive  power. 


The  Consciousness  of  Sin 

overwhelming  in  their  impressiveness. 
From  the  days  of  iEschylus  to  those  in 
which  Browning  wrote  "The  Blot  in  the 
'Scutcheon,"  the  dramatist  has  told  again 
and  again,  in  every  conceivable  form,  the 
tragedy  of  the  transgressor.  The  pene- 
trating genius  of  Hawthorne  was  con- 
tinually searching  the  mystery,  studying 
it  from  the  side  of  inheritance,  of  personal 
responsibility  and  its  reactive  influence, 
and  dealing  with  it  always  with  a  sincerity 
and  subtlety  which  bore  constant  witness 
to  the  directness  and  authority  of  the 
vision  brought  to  bear  on  some  of  the 
most  terrible  and  elusive  facts  of  human 
experience.  In  fact,  fiction  in  its  higher 
forms  bears  constant  witness  to  the 
presence  and  reality  of  sin  among  men. 
Flaubert's  masterpiece  is,  in  its  way,  one 
of  the  most  searching  pieces  of  moral 
analysis  ever  made,  and  no  one  can  read 
"  Madame  Bovary  "  without  feeling  the 
merciless  accuracy  with  which  the  succes- 
sive stages  of  moral  disintegration  are 
traced.  In  like  manner,  Zola  has  made 
23 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

the  most  appalling  disclosure  of  the 
ravages  of  intemperance  in  "  L'Assom- 
moir."  Such  pictures  as  these,  even 
when  painted  with  repulsive  frankness 
and  in  a  cynical  temper,  bear  unimpeach- 
able testimony  to  the  horror  of  sin  even 
in  the  vision  of  the  artist  indifferent  to 
definite  teaching  and  intent  only  on 
seeing  things  as  they  are. 

There  is  no  better  test  of  spiritual 
growth  than  increasing  sensitiveness  to 
the  repulsiveness  of  all  kinds  of  sin,  and 
deepening  consciousness  of  the  constant 
peril  from  it  in  which  every  human  soul 
lives.  In  the  greatest  saint  there  are  all 
the  possibilities  which,  being  worked  out, 
make  the  greatest  sinner  ;  and  the  truer  the 
saintliness  the  deeper  the  consciousness 
of  this  fact.  The  materials  out  of  which 
heaven  and  hell  are  builded  are  found  in 
every  life,  and  the  man  who  slowly  builds 
heaven  within  him  has  constantly  the 
terrible  knowledge  that  he  has  only  to 
put  his  hand  forth  in  another  direction  in 
order  to  build  hell :  both  are  within 
24 


The  Consciousness  of  Sin 

reach.  But  as  a  man  builds  heaven  his 
vision  of  the  internal  possibilities  of  life 
grows  clearer,  and  his  horror  of  wrong- 
doing becomes  more  constant  and  con- 
trolling. The  disguises  under  which 
evil  hides  itself  become  more  apparent, 
until  the  beautiful  mask  no  longer  pro- 
duces even  a  momentary  illusion ;  the 
hideous  face  is  seen  at  a  glance.  When 
one  has  come  to  see  sin  as  it  is,  and  to 
loath  and  hate  it,  not  for  its  consequences 
but  for  itself,  one  has  gone  a  long  way 
towards  that  final  redemption  from  its 
power  which  we  call  salvation.  But  we 
are  never  saved  until  we  have  looked  sin 
in  the  face  and  know  that  it  is  not  only  a 
terrible  reality,  but  that  it  has  touched 
the  best  of  us  with  its  defilement;  and 
that,  at  some  moment  in  our  lives,  the 
noblest  of  us  must  cry: 

O  God  the  Son,  Redeemer  of  the  world ; 
have  mercy  upon  us  miserable  sinners. 


25. 


chapter  IV 

Not  Rejection,  but  Redemption 

SELF-DENIAL  lies  at  the  base  of 
all  noble  living  and  of  every  form 
of  noble  activity ;  and  no  one  attains 
to  supreme  moral  excellence,  or  to  a 
high  degree  of  skill  in  any  art  or  pro- 
fession, without  thoroughly  subjecting 
impulse,  inclination,  and  passion  to  the 
higher  and  finer  ends  towards  which  he 
moves.  To  excel  in  any  craft  or  skill 
involves  a  clear  and  definite  setting  aside 
of  many  things  which  are  at  moments 
almost  irresistible  in  their  appeal  to  our 
desires  and  impulses  ;  and  it  is  quite  as 
much  by  what  he  discards  as  by  what  he 
accepts  that  the  worker  evidences  his 
mastery  of  his  materials  and  his  tools. 
Behind  every  great  career  there  lies  a 
denial  of  self  of  which  the  world  knows 
nothing,  unless  it  have  the  wit  to  discern 

26 


Not  Rejection,  but  Redemption 

in  the  finished  product  not  only  the 
visible  traces  of  skill,  but  also  those  in- 
visible achievements  of  the  will  over  self- 
indulgence  of  all  kinds  which  give  the 
heart  courage,  the  spirit  poise,  and  the 
mind  clearness  of  vision.  Behind  noble 
productiveness  in  the  arts  there  is  a 
heroism  of  toil  and  consecration  of  which 
no  trace  remains  save  that  perfection  of 
line  or  form  which  is  the  last  fruit  of 
victorious  striving.  In  like  manner,  the 
life  of  the  spirit,  if  it  be  fruitful,  lumi- 
nous, and  progressive,  begins  and  con- 
tinues in  clear  sovereignty  of  spiritual 
purpose  over  all  confusing  or  diverting 
aims  and  impulses. 

But  self-denial  is  the  beginning,  never 
the  end,  of  the  true  life  of  man.  There 
are  times,  it  is  true,  when  to  deny  is 
more  positive  than  to  affirm,  and  to  pro- 
test is  the  most  courageous  and  effective 
way  of  announcing  a  new  truth.  The 
first  followers  of  Christ,  living  in  a  so- 
ciety saturated  with  the  spirit  of  pagan- 
ism, confronted  on  every  side  by  pagan 
27 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

forms,  services,  ceremonies,  found  their 
first  duty  in  denial  and  protest.  They 
could  not  live  in  amity  with  a  social 
order  which  was  at  once  corrupt  and 
idolatrous.  In  whatever  path  they  trod 
they  found  themselves  face  to  face  with 
customs  to  which  they  could  not  con- 
form ;  every  ceremonial  in  domestic, 
civic,  or  social  life  presented  a  sharp  and 
definite  issue  between  loyalty  and  dis- 
loyalty to  the  Master  they  served ; 
and  to  deny  and  protest  were  the  fore- 
m.ost  duties  laid  upon  them  —  duties 
which  often  meant  the  prison,  the  cross, 
or  the  awful  show  of  the  amphitheatre. 
In  like  manner,  when  society  was  full  of 
rottenness  and  confusion,  in  the  centuries 
when  Christianity  and  paganism  were 
locked  in  long  and  inevitable  struggle, 
thousands  of  faithful  believers  found,  or 
thought  they  found,  safety  and  peace  in 
separation  from  their  fellows,  and  in 
lonely  places  practised  a  self-denial  which 
became,  to  the  imagination,  a  kind  of 
exaltation. 

28 


Not  Rejection,  but  Redemption 

But  society  has  passed  through  trans- 
formations which  have  gone  to  the  very 
centre  of  its  structure  ;  it  is  now  nomi- 
nally Christian;  its  formal  observances, 
customs,  habits  and  standards  are  Chris- 
tian. He  who  follows  Christ  to-day 
does  not  confront  pagan  images  and 
rites  at  every  turn ;  wherever  he  turns 
he  is  face  to  face  with  the  symbols  of  his 
own  faith.  Self-denial  is  still  the  neces- 
sity of  his  soul,  but  it  is  no  longer  the 
supreme  evidence  of  the  reality  of  his 
fliith.  It  is  the  beginning,  not  the  end, 
of  his  spiritual  growth.  It  is  a  beautiful 
thing  to  keep  one's  self  unspotted  from 
the  world ;  to  resist  its  temptations, 
escape  its  snares,  repel  its  attacks,  and 
overcome  its  obstacles ;  but  this,  after 
all,  is  only  the  initial  step  of  a  deep, 
spiritual  lite.  No  man  shines  like  a 
light  before  his  fellows  unless  he  does 
something  greater  than  resist  and  escape 
the  evil  that  is  in  the  world  ;  the  great 
commander  is  on  the  defensive  only  by 
force  of  circumstances  ;  his  true  line  is 
29 


.   Life  of  the  Spirit 

the  aggressive.  It  is  his  ultimately  to 
lead,  attack,  and  conquer,  not  to  repel. 
There  are  moments  when  his  first  duty- 
is  to  hold  his  own  ;  but  the  great  move- 
ments and  moments  in  his  career  are 
those  which  liberate  his  own  powers  and 
give  play  to  his  own  constructive  and 
creative  genius.  It  is  a  noble  thing  to 
be  clean  in  a  society  which  is  full  of  that 
which  soils  and  discolours  ;  but  it  is  a 
nobler  thing  to  carry  a  contagious  purity 
into  vile  places  and  to  throw  a  white 
light  into  the  encircling  darkness.  The 
noblest  spiritual  growth  is  not  evidenced 
by  that  which  it  rejects,  but  by  that 
which  it  redeems ;  a  man  of  low  spiritual 
vitality  may  be  content  to  hold  his  own, 
but  a  man  of  high  spiritual  vitality  is 
driven  by  the  very  force  of  that  vitality 
to  mix  with  the  widest  movement  of  his 
time  and  take  his  stand  where  the  great 
forces  which  move  men  converge. 

Christ  came  not,  like   the  master  of  a 
lifeboat,  to  pluck  here  and  there  a  drown- 
ing man  from  the  wide  and  desolate  seas ; 
30 


Not  Rejection,  but  Redemption 

he  came  to  bring  life,  and  to  make  it 
more  abundant.  He  came  not  to  witness 
to  purity  and  righteousness  by  rejection 
and  denial ;  that  was  the  office  of  John 
the  Baptist,  and  of  all  men  of  the  ascetic 
type.  Christ  came  to  witness  to  the 
glory  of  God  and  the  nobility  of  his 
works  by  redeeming  that  which  man  had 
corrupted,  and  restoring  that  which  man 
had  defiled.  He  came  to  take  back  from 
evil  uses  that  which  men,  in  their  spirit- 
ual ignorance  and  weakness,  had  given 
over  to  evil  so  long  that  they  confounded 
their  own  use  with  the  very  nature  of  the 
thing.  Christ  came,  not  to  protest  and 
deny,  but  to  affirm  and  reveal.  And  the 
true  evidence  of  the  noblest  following  of 
his  example  is  the  demonstration  that  the 
world  is  the  Lord's,  and  the  clear  revela- 
tion of  the  possibility  of  redeeming  it  by 
making  noble  use  of  it.  The  highest 
service  of  such  a  career  as  that  which 
Phillips  Brooks  lived  among  men  is  the 
deepened  sense  which  it  gives  men  of  the 
richness  and  beauty  of  life.  Here  was  a 
31 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

man  than  whom  none  was  more  un- 
spotted ;  a  man  as  clean  and  white  as  ever 
anchorite  or  ascetic  kept  himself;  and  yet 
a  man  who  kept  himself  in  closest  touch 
with  all  the  great  movements ;  who  loved 
travel,  books,  art,  history,  nature ;  who 
valued  humor,  wit,  eloquence,  culture ; 
a  man,  indeed,  to  whom  every  phase  of 
activity  and  every  kind  of  expression 
were  precious,  because  God  was  in  all 
good  things,  and  all  good  things  revealed 
him.  Here,  clearly,  the  test  was  not 
completeness  of  rejection,  but  inclusive- 
ness  of  acceptance ;  not  the  ringing  note 
of  protest,  but  the  full-voiced  declaration 
of  the  glory  of  God  in  the  beauty  and 
uses  of  the  world.  In  an  earlier  day  and 
in  a  pagan  society  that  voice,  so  full  of 
passionate  devotion  to  the  things  of  the 
spirit,  would  have  sounded  the  note  of 
denial ;  in  this  day  it  came  freighted  with 
a  richer  music. 

For  society  is  no  longer  in  its  spiritual 
childhood  ;  it  has  come  to  a  certain  degree 
of  maturity.      Its  larger  intelligence  and 
32 


Not  Rejection,  but  Redemption 

its  increased  strength  ought  to  be  evi- 
denced by  bolder  and  fuller  use  of  the 
things  which  God  has  fashioned ;  by  a 
nobler  thought  of  the  world  which  God 
has  made  and  redeemed.  That  he  has 
made  the  world  we  are  ready  to  believe ; 
that  he  has  redeemed  it  still  seems  incred- 
ible. We  find  it  hard  to  believe  that  all 
society  and  every  form  of  activity  are  by 
and  by  to  declare  his  glory  and  reveal  his 
purpose.  But  if  this  be  not  true,  Christ 
suffered  in  vain.  It  was  not  for  a  frag- 
ment of  life,  a  broken  bit  of  time,  a  little 
section  of  the  race,  that  he  bore  the  agony 
of  Gethsemane  and  Calvary.  Out  of 
that  crucible  of  suffering  there  issued  a 
power  vast  enough  and  deep  enough  to 
redeem  all  time,  all  men,  all  life.  Slowly 
out  of  that  inscrutable  experience,  and  as 
the  result  of  Christ's  whole  teaching,  there 
dawns  the  vision  of  a  world  which  is  the 
Lord's  in  the  fullness  thereof ;  a  world 
in  which  every  activity,  art,  science, 
knowledge,  culture,  reveal  the  presence 
of  the  Lord  and  show  forth  his  glory. 
3  33 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

The  old  struggle  against  temptation 
within  and  without  goes  on  as  it  went  on 
when  David  sinned  and  was  sorrowful, 
and  Peter  denied  and  repented  in  the 
bitterness  of  that  av/ful  morning  when 
his  Lord  was  led  to  the  crucifixion. 
That  struggle  lies  in  the  experience  of 
every  man,  and  will  be  renewed  in  the 
unfolding  of  the  life  of  the  spirit  to  the 
very  end  of  time.  In  the  world  there  Is 
contention,  confusion,  wrong-doing,  and 
the  tragedy  of  unrighteousness  working 
out  its  ancient  fruits  of  misery,  remorse, 
and  death.  And  yet,  in  spite  of  all  these 
things  —  rather,  through  all  these  things 
—  there  slowly  dawns  In  the  religious 
consciousness  the  meaning  ot  the  great 
declaration  that  the  world  is  the  Lord's, 
and  the  fullness  thereof.  As  the  Christ 
was  veiled  in  the  garments  of  the  human 
child,  and  the  glory  of  the  Highest  hid- 
den In  a  manger,  so  the  thought  of  God 
is  written  in  every  normal  work  of  man's 
spirit ;  in  every  form  of  activity  through 
which  he  pours  himself  upon  the  world ; 
34 


Not  Rejection,  but  Redemption 

in  every  art  whose  tools  turn  to  the  uses 
of  beauty  in  his  hands ;  in  all  knowl- 
edge, training,  skill,  and  enlightenment. 
Through  all  these  things  God  speaks, 
for  these  are  the  voices  of  man's  spirit; 
voices  often  confusing  and  discordant, 
oftener  pathetic  and  appealing ;  but 
always  voices  of  that  spirit  which  has 
borne  many  burdens,  carried  many 
crosses,  v/orn  many  crowns  of  thorns, 
drunk  many  cups  of  suffering.  The 
tragedy,  the  aspiration,  and  the  divine 
sonship  of  man  are  in  his  works  as  truly 
as  himself;  God  made  him  what  he  is, 
and  his  works  are  therefore  the  disclosure 
of  God's  purpose.  Not  until  we  read  all 
true  human  activities  and  achievements 
in  the  light  of  this  thought  do  we  under- 
stand how  the  world  Is  the  Lord  's,  nor 
why  Christ  came  not  to  deny  and  reject 
but  to  redeem  and  glorify. 


35 


chapter  V 

The  Christmas  Vision 

Ajid  there  were  in  the  same  country  shepherds 
abiding  in  the  f  eld,  keeping  watch  over  their  Jiocks  by 
night. 

And,  lo,  the  angel  of  the  Lord  came  upon  them,  and 
the  glory  of  the  Lord  shone  round  about  them  :  and 
they  were  sore  afraid. 

And  the  angel  said  unto  them.  Fear  not :  for,  be- 
hold, I  bring  you  good  tidings  of  great  joy,  which  shall 
be  to  all  people.  For  unto  you  is  born  this  day  in  the 
city  of  David  a  Saviour,  which  is  Christ  the  Lord. 

And  this  shall  be  a  sign  unto  you  :  Te  shall  find 
the  babe  wrapped  in  swaddling  clothes,  lying  in  a 
manger. 

And  suddenly  there  was  with  the  angel  a  multitude 
of  the  heavenly  host  praising  God,  and  saying : 

Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  and  on  earth  peace, 
good  will  toward  men. 

A  CHILD  in    his   mother's  arms,  a 
company    of   shepherds    on    the 
hillside,  and  a  sudden  splendour  of  angels 
in  the  quiet  night  —  could  any  grouping 
36 


The  Christmas  Vision 

of  persons  bring  out  more  clearly  the 
immense  range  of  man's  life  and  its  won- 
derful possibilities  !  The  manger  for 
poverty  of  condition,  the  babe  for  the 
common  helplessness,  the  shepherds  for 
the  drudgery  of  universal  occupations  — 
and,  suddenly,  in  the  night  which  had 
darkened  the  world  a  thousand  thousand 
unremembered  times,  out  of  the  old, 
familiar  sky,  the  glory  of  heavenly  faces 
and  the  unspeakable  melody  of  angelic 
voices  !  So  man  has  always  lived,  even 
in  rags  and  sin,  with  the  radiance  of  the 
sky  ovei  him  ;  so  every  cradle  has  rocked 
a  son  of  God  ;  so  every  mother  has  held 
the  child  of  God  in  her  arms  ;  so  every 
common  duty  of  common  men  has  been 
an  opportunity  for  heavenly  revelation  ; 
so  every  night  the  glory  of  the  Invisible 
God  has  been  but  thinly  veiled  from  the 
plains  where  grain  ripens,  and  the  hill- 
side where  flocks  are  feeding.  The  mira- 
cle is  so  wonderful  and  so  familiar  that 
men  have  never  yet  really  believed  that 
it  has  been  wrought.  A  few  in  every 
37 

-L  Ky  kJ  U  ^  O 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

generation  have  seen  the  splendour  on 
sorrowful,  suffering  humanity  ;  many 
have  hoped  and  have  said  that  they  be- 
lieved ;  but  the  great  mass  of  men  have 
never  yet  dared  to  live  in  the  joy  and 
peace  which  must  come  to  those  who  be- 
lieve that  the  world  is  the  Lord's  and  the 
fullness  thereof.  Humanity  will  not 
accept  its  divine  parentage,  because  it 
seems  a  fortune  beyond  its  deserts  ;  out 
of  sheer  consciousness  of  unworthiness, 
as  well  as  out  of  spiritual  dullness  of 
vision,  men  doubt  their  heavenly  origin 
and  destiny.  There  is  no  more  appalling 
evidence  of  the  devastation  wrought  by 
evil  in  the  soul  of  man  than  the  fact  that 
he  still  finds  the  promise  of  Christ  in- 
credible. 

And  yet  every  twelfth  month  the  Chris- 
tian world  gathers  round  the  manger  at 
Bethlehem,  and  listens,  in  the  stillness  of 
the  night,  to  hear  the  angels  sing;  and 
out  of  the  windows,  in  the  frosty  air,  it 
still  seems  to  many,  for  a  moment,  as  if 
there  were  a  glow  upon  the  snow  and  a 
38 


The  Christmas  Vision 

sudden  splendour  among  the  stars.  Little 
children,  pure  in  heart,  look  at  the  lighted 
tree  and  hear  the  familiar  carols,  and 
know  that  long  ago,  on  the  plain  of 
Bethlehem,  there  came  a  sudden  rush  of 
melody  down  from  the  silent  stars,  with 
words  few,  beautiful,  and  loving,  which 
men  cannot  forget,  and  they  know  that 
the  shepherds  really  saw  and  heard.  And 
their  elders,  crowded  about  them,  are 
stirred  in  their  hearts,  and  the  beautiful 
old  story  lives  again,  and  has  its  balm  for 
pain  and  its  sweetness  for  the  bitterness  of 
life.  But  when  the  morrow  comes  the 
glory  has  faded,  and  the  world  is  gray 
and  cold  and  sad.  Men  do  not  believe, 
because  their  own  hearts  do  not  justify  a 
faith  so  simple,  so  transcendent,  so  divine. 
The  wonderful  element  in  the  story 
of  the  Birth  is  its  perfect  simplicity  and 
naturalness.  It  deals  only  with  the  most 
familiar  situations,  it  introduces  only  the 
most  humble  figures,  it  uses  only  the  most 
elementary  speech.  The  manger,  the 
babe,  the  mother,  the  shepherd,  the 
39 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

flocks,  the  quiet  night,  the  few,  simple 
words:  could  the  divine  drama  have  been 
put  on  a  more  unpretending  stage,  com- 
mitted to  more  unskilled  actors,  employed 
a  speech  more  common  and  readily  un- 
derstood ?  There  is  no  selection  of  the 
places,  persons  and  moments  which  seem 
to  us  noble,  elect,  significant ;  there,  is  on 
the  contrary,  entire  disregard  of  all  our 
distinctions  of  quality  and  differences  of 
degree;  life  is  taken  in  most  common 
and  homely  aspects,  man  in  his  feeblest 
moment,  witnesses  in  the  humblest  occu- 
pations, language  in  its  most  obvious 
and  universal  significance.  And  over  all 
this  obscurity,  homeliness,  and  common- 
placeness,  behold!  the  splendour  of  God 
shines,  and  the  manger  is  forever  a  place 
of  pilgrimage,  and  the  helpless  child  the 
mightiest  force  known  among  men,  and 
the  shepherds  hear  voices  for  whose 
music  the  great  and  wise  have  listened  in 
vain,  and  the  veil  is  rent  asunder  and  the 
earth  and  the  heavens  are  as  one.  There 
are  no  common  men,  there  is  no  hope- 
40 


The  Christmas  Vision 

less  drudgery,  there  is  no  forsaken  world 
whirling  through  dreary  night  to  a  night 
still  darker  and  to  dreams  more  awful. 
The  earth  is  the  Lord's,  and  the  fullness 
thereof;  and  every  birth  is  a  miracle, 
every  manger  a  holy  place,  every  child  a 
son  of  the  highest,  every  occupation  an 
education  for  immortality. 

A  divine  Father,  a  divine  Son,  a 
divine  world  —  so  ran  the  meaning  of  the 
first  Christmas  day  when  angels  broke 
their  silence  and  declared  the  mind  of 
heaven  to  earth ;  when  the  redeemed  in 
their  toil  and  the  redeemed  in  their  glory 
met  for  one  brief  but  eternal  moment 
about  the  manger,  to  prove  that  heaven 
shines  on  every  birth,  and  that  in  every 
cradle  a  child  of  God  sleeps  and  wakes. 

Such  a  story  must  be  incredible  to  all 
save  the  pure  in  heart.  Little  children 
do  not  question  it;  to  them  it  is  natural, 
historic,  simple  —  as  much  a  part  of 
their  lives  as  the  love  of  parents  and  the 
comfort  of  home.  For  them  the  Star  of 
Bethlehem  is  like  every  other  star,  and 
41 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

the  wise  men  travel  from  afar  because  they 
are  wise,  and  the  angels  sing  because  they 
are  always  singing ;  and  for  those  who 
stand  about  them,  and  watch  their  bright 
faces  and  the  light  of  the  star  in  their 
eyes,  they  are  not  only  the  custodians  of 
the  Christmas  story,  but  its  revealers  as 
well.  The  highest  things  are  credible  to 
those  only  whose  lives  respond  to  and 
fulfill  them.  To  believe  in  Christmas 
and  the  truth  which  comes  with  it,  borne 
on  such  splendour  of  common  things,  one 
needs  not  to  study  historic  evidence,  but 
to  become  as  a  little  child  in  purity  of 
heart.  For  the  Christ  In  the  heart  recog- 
nizes the  Christ  In  the  manger. 


42 


chapter  VI 

The  Man  Christ  Jesus 

THE  clear  recognition  of  the  normal 
human  life  of  Christ  is  one  of 
the  great  gains  of  modern  religious 
thought.  To  his  disciples,  who  felt  the 
touch  of  his  hand  and  heard  the  tones  of 
his  voice  ;  to  the  little  group  of  twelve, 
who  often  lived  with  him  in  the  intimacy 
of  the  most  familiar  intercourse  ;  to  the 
throngs  who  waited  to  see  him  pass,  or 
to  hear  those  simple,  beautiful,  and 
searching  talks  —  to  all  these  Christ  was 
never  less  than  man,  however  greater 
than  man.  There  was  no  confusion  of 
two  personalities  in  the  thought  of  his 
contemporaries  ;  no  blurring  of  the  clear 
outlines  of  a  warm,  vital,  real  human 
career;  no  substitution  of  a  strange,  un- 
human,  incomprehensible  personality  in 
place  of  the  son  of  Mary,  who  was 
43 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

born  at  Bethlehem,  had  gone  up  to  the 
temple  while  yet  a  child  and  talked  with 
the  doctors  of  the  law,  had  spoken  in 
many  places  in  Judea  and  Galilee,  had 
died  at  Jerusalem  as  other  men  die,  and 
been  buried  as  other  men  were  buried. 
All  this  the  men  and  women  who  had 
become  his  followers  knew  about  Christ ; 
and  to  them  he  was  as  real,  natural  and 
normal  a  man  as  John,  Matthew,  or  Peter. 
There  was  nothing  abnormal  about  him, 
although  there  was  much  that  was  excep- 
tional and  unique ;  there  was  nothing 
phantasmal  about  him,  although  there 
were  things  which  were  incomprehensible. 
Those  who  saw  sight  restored  to  the 
blind  and  life  given  back  to  the  dead  saw 
nothing  strange  or  unnatural  in  the  bear- 
ing of  the  healer,  or  incomprehensible 
and  mysterious  in  his  methods.  Noth- 
ing could  be  in  more  striking  and  signi- 
ficant contrast  than  the  simplicity  with 
which  Christ  did  the  wonderful  works 
which  are  called  miracles,  and  the  air  of 
cheap  mystery  with  which  modern  at- 
44 


The  Man  Christ  Jesus 

tempts  to  use  what  are  called  supernatural 
powers  or  to  produce  what  are  called  super- 
natural effects  are  surrounded.  The  sane 
spiritual  mind,  after  witnessing  one  of  these 
attempts,  longs  to  get  into  the  open  air ; 
nothing  could  be  more  unwholesome  and 
spiritually  repulsive  than  that  mockery  of 
spiritual  intercourse  miscalled  the  spiritual 
seance.  From  all  that  was  abnormal,  mor- 
bid, or  spiritually  unnatural  Christ  was  as 
free  as  a  great  artist  is  from  tricks  of  man- 
ner or  a  great  nature  from  pretension.  In 
his  divinest  moments  Christ  was  unaffect- 
edly and  simply  human  in  his  aspect,  ex- 
pression, and  experience  ;  in  those  myste- 
rious hours  at  the  threshold  of  which 
thought  stands  reverent  and  abashed,  all 
that  a  man  may  feel  Christ  must  have  felt, 
however  much  may  have  been  added  of 
experience  beyond  the  ken  of  human 
kind.  It  was  no  unnatural  and  abnormal 
power  which  flowed  from  the  touch  and  in 
the  command  of  this  quiet,  sympathetic, 
tender-hearted  teacher ;  it  was  rather  the 
exaltation  and  sublimation  of  his  natural 
45 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

force;  it  was  the  overflow  of  that  spirit- 
ual vitaHty  within  him  upon  which  the 
whole  world  was  to  draw.  The  healing, 
the  feeding  of  the  multitude,  the  raising 
of  the  dead,  were  marvellous  and  incom- 
prehensible manifestations  of  authority 
over  material  conditions  ;  but  to  the  men 
who  saw  them  these  works  must  have 
seemed  perfectly  natural.  One  who 
really  saw  what  was  in  Christ  might 
have  predicted  them ;  they  carried  no 
element  of  surprise  with  them  ;  for,  from 
such  an  one  as  he,  they  might  have  been 
expected.  They  were  as  natural  to  him 
as  walking  was  to  Peter,  or  speaking  to 
Paul.  When  one  looks  at  these  mar- 
vellous works  in  the  immediate  presence 
of  the  man  who  wrought  them,  they  cease 
to  be  strange  and  difficult  to  believe. 

When  speculation  began,  however,  to 
play  about  this  wonderful  personality,  to 
separate  it  into  faculties,  to  divide  it  into 
a  dual  nature,  to  mark  the  line  between  the 
human  and  the  divine,  then  straightway 
the  clear  and  beautiful  figure  of  Christ  be- 
46 


The  Man  Christ  Jesus 

gan  to  loom  strange  and  mysterious  in  the 
thought  of  Christendom.  In  losing  the 
sense  of  the  reality  of  his  human  nature 
and  life,  men  lost  closeness  of  touch,  in- 
timacy of  feeling,  frankness  and  simplicity 
of  fellowship  with  him  ;  he  receded  from 
their  view,  the  outlines  of  his  face  became 
shadowy,  the  tones  of  his  voice  seemed 
remote  and  alien ;  the  memory  of  his 
works  was  suffered  to  surround  the 
worker  like  a  magical  veil  through  which 
mortal  eyes  must  not  strive  to  look. 
He  who  had  lived,  so  to  speak,  in  the 
open  ;  who  loved  highways,  the  sea- 
shore, and  the  places  where  men  gather, 
no  less  than  mountain  solitudes  and  desert 
places ;  who  ate  at  family  tables,  used 
homely  speech,  cared  for  little  children, 
and  spoke  intimately  to  fallen  women, 
gradually  withdrew  from  the  near  gaze 
of  men  into  the  infinite  distance  where 
God  was  exiled  from  the  world  he  had 
m.ade,  and  became  himself  a  kind  of  sec- 
ond divinity  ;  more  tender  than  the  father 
—  had  he  not  human  memories  and  as- 
47 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

sociations  ?  —  but  still  far  above  the 
touch  of  human  hands  and  the  sound 
of  human  voices. 

But  man  must  needs  have  the  love  of 
man  and  the  sympathy  of  man,  and  so  it 
came  to  pass  that,  as  Christ  slowly 
climbed  the  steps  of  the  white  throne  and 
took  on  the  ineffable  majesty  of  the  God- 
head, the  tender,  sorrowful  face  of  the 
virgin  mother  grew  more  and  more  dis- 
tinct and  beautiful  in  the  thoughts  of 
men.  There  must  be  some  one  nearer 
God  than  themselves,  and  yet  like  them- 
selves in  need  and  memory  and  hope,  to 
whom  they  could  speak ;  some  one  who 
understood  their  experiences  and  spoke 
their  language.  And  so  it  came  to  pass, 
out  of  the  deep  necessities  of  the  human 
soul  and  the  human  life,  that  Mary  be- 
came the  intercessor  between  her  own  son 
and  his  human  brothers ;  and  the  Christ 
who  died  for  his  brothers,  and  who,  in 
dying,  pardoned  those  who  smote  him, 
vanished,  in  a  way,  out  of  the  life  he 
lived  and  the  world  he  had  redeemed. 
48 


The  Man  Christ  Jesus 

In  the  history  of  human  thought  few 
things  have  been  more  strange  or  pathetic 
than  the  loss  of  the  sense  of  the  reality  of 
the  humanity  of  Christ ;  for  no  revelation 
was  ever  more  complete  than  that  which 
set  the  figure  of  the  man  Christ  Jesus  in 
the  crowded  highways  of  the  world. 

The  difficulty  of  believing  in  the  inter- 
pretation of  life  which  the  great  spiritual 
teachers  have  always  given  lies  not  in  the 
interpretation  but  in  ourselves.  There 
are  moments  in  which  we  know  that  life 
has  all  the  glory  with  which  it  has  been 
clothed  by  prophet  and  poet.  We  need 
no  demonstration  in  these  hours  of  exal- 
tation ;  we  see  with  our  own  eyes.  On 
the  mountain  summit  no  one  doubts  the 
great  sweep  of  landscape,  beautiful  and 
benignant  to  the  curve  of  the  blue 
horizon  ;  but  when  we  descend  and  the 
view  fades,  and  skies  are  low,  and  mists 
hang  close  about  us,  we  begin  to  forget, 
to  question,  and  to  reject.  Noble  men, 
unspoiled  by  misuse  of  a  good  world, 
know  that  life  is  noble  ;  evil  men  know 
4  49 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

that  life  is  evil :  have  they  not  made  it 
so  ?  In  our  uncertainty  of  thought  about 
God,  our  uncertainty  of  moral  action, 
our  manifold  and  oft-repeated  failures  to 
do  what  we  want  to  do  and  live  as  we 
ought  to  live,  it  seems  incredible  that 
Christ  really  was  and  is  one  of  us  —  one, 
that  is,  in  complete  knowledge  of  our 
experience,  needs,  and  sin,  in  complete 
sympathy  and  in  immortal  fellowship. 
We  do  not  believe  it  because  we  are  not 
good  enough  to  believe  it  ;  we  doubt  it 
because  we  feel  unworthy  of  it.  And  so, 
forgetting  that  it  was  this  very  condition 
in  ourselves  which  brought  Christ  to  us, 
we  suffer  him  to  recede  into  the  distance, 
and  lose  the  divinest  experience  which 
can  come  to  us.  Sharing  that  divine 
nature  which  lays  the  burdens  of  the  weak 
upon  the  strong,  the  sin  of  the  impure 
upon  the  pure,  the  need  of  man  upon  God, 
Christ  must  come  to  us  ;  being  bone  of 
our  bone  and  flesh  of  our  flesh,  he  must 
likewise  know  us,  sufi^er  and  die  for  us, 
and  live  immortally  with  us. 
50 


"Chapter  VII 

Half-Truths  and  the  Truth 

ONE  of  the  most  difficult  duties  laid 
upon  a  man  is  the  balancing  of 
his  life  between  what  appear  to  be  antag- 
onistic tendencies.  That  this  is  a  duty 
is  evident  from  the  gravity  of  a  failure  to 
secure  this  balance.  All  ill-balanced 
character,  extravagance  of  opinion,  ex- 
cesses of  energy,  tragic  wastings  of  force, 
and  the  vast  majority  of  those  eccentrici- 
ties which  betray  a  distortion  of  nature, 
come  from  the  failure  to  harmonize  the 
diverse  tendencies  which  are  in  every 
man's  heart  and  the  diverse  forces  which 
play  through  every  man's  life.  It  is  im- 
possible to  give  one's  self  up  wholly  to 
anything  without  spiritual  loss  ;  even  the 
pursuit  of  the  highest  virtues  and  the 
noblest  ends  becomes  an  occasion  of 
51 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

weakness  if  these  virtues  and  ends  are 
thrown  out  of  their  normal  relations  to 
the  whole  order  of  life.  In  order  to  at- 
tain deep  spirituality  of  nature  one  must, 
in  a  sense,  be  separated  from  the  world  ; 
and  yet  no  man  can  attain  his  full  stature 
or  greatly  serve  his  fellows  who  is  de- 
tached in  fact  or  in  feeling  from  the  hu- 
man brotherhood.  One  cannot  compass 
the  richest  spiritual  growth  or  attain  the 
widest  spiritual  vision  if  he  is  of  the 
world ;  neither  can  one  secure  either  of 
these  great  ends  unless  he  be  in  the 
world.  In  order  to  lead  his  fellows  one 
must  attain  the  independence  of  the  great 
teachers  whose  wisdom  has  always  been 
the  knowledge  of  God  ;  but  no  one  can 
touch  the  hearts  of  his  brother  men  and 
guide  them  into  higher  paths  unless  he  is 
so  completely  one  with  them  in  all  the 
deeper  experiences  that  he  secures  also 
the  wisdom  of  the  knowledge  of  man. 

The  ball  of  the  earth,  like  all  the  other 
stars  that  shine    in   the    firmament,  is  in 
perpetual  danger  of  flying  into  its  sun  or 
52 


Half-Truths  and  the  Truth 

of  rushing  into  space  ;  and  man,  who  lives 
on  this  flying  ball  played  upon  by  two 
apparently  antagonistic  forces,  must  lose 
his  life  in  order  to  save  it,  deny  himself 
in  order  to  be  happy,  and  give  all  that  he 
possesses  in  order  to  be  permanently  rich. 
If  he  hoards,  he  wastes  ;  if  he  guards 
himself  against  sorrow  by  keeping  his  af- 
fections at  home,  he  impoverishes  him- 
self; if  he  strives  to  escape  the  dangers 
of  life  by  keeping  out  of  the  path  of  the 
tragic  experiences,  he  invites  inevitable 
disaster.  At  maturity  he  is  told,  if  he 
longs  to  serve  God,  that  he  must  be 
born  again  ;  in  old  age  he  is  taught,  if  he 
longs  to  know  God,  that  he  must  become 
as  a  little  child.  The  structure  of  his 
own  nature  seems  to  afiirm  that  the 
highest  wisdom  is  the  exclusive  posses- 
sion of  those  whose  minds  have  had  the 
most  complete  training,  and  in  whose 
memory  knowledge  has  found  the 
amplest  home  ;  and  yet  it  is  written  that 
out  of  the  mouths  of  babes  God  has 
ordained  wisdom,  and  in  the  hearts  of 
53 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

the  poor  and  humble  there  is  a  light 
above  the  light  of  knowledge.  When 
the  Infinite  took,  on  the  conditions  of 
mortality  and  became  a  man,  his  place  of 
birth  was  obscure,  his  parentag.e^humble, 
his  education  slight,  his  divinity  veiled  by 
the  lowliest  aspects  of  humanity.  The 
greatest  of  the  apparerit  contradictions  of 
life  is  the  fact  that  God  has  led  a  human 
life  ;  and  Christ  himself  was  a  greater  par- 
adox than  any  of  the  paradoxes  he  uttered. 
In  whatever  field  a  man  walks,  he  finds 
himself  confronted  and  surrounded  by 
these  strange  and  confusing  contradic- 
tions. He  has  a  deep  instinct  for  order, 
and  yet  he  is  born  into  a  society  full  of 
the  elements  of  disorder  ;  he  has  a  love 
of  beauty,  but  he  is  encircled  by  ugliness 
in  a  thousand  forms  ;  he  has  a  passion 
for  freedom,  but  if  he  follows  his  own 
desires  and  surrenders  to  his  own  im- 
pulses, chains  of  habit  are  fastened  upon 
him  which  are  like  bands  of  iron  ;  and 
he  does  not  need  to  study  long  in  the 
school  of  life  to  discover  that  the  only 
54 


Half-Truths  and  the  Truth 

road  to  liberty  is  through  obedience,  and 
that  he  who  would  be  a  master  must  first 
be  a  servant.  And  this  is  only  the  be- 
ginning of  that  education  which  seems  to 
reverse  all  the  first  impressions  of  the 
normal  order  of  things.  For  the  man 
learns  not  only  that  the  earth  turns  to- 
ward the  sun  instead  of  the  sun  rising 
upon  the  earth,  but  that  the  small  things 
are  great,  and  the  great  things  small  ; 
that  the  sublimest  duties  are  often  the 
humblest  in  appearance,  the  noblest  op- 
portunities often  the  most  insignificant  at 
the  first  glance,  and  the  loftiest  natures 
the  most  unassuming.  If  he  would  be 
great,  he  must  first  become  simple;  if  he 
would  lead  his  generation,  he  must  be  its 
foremost  servant ;  if  he  would  uncover 
the  beauty  of  the  world,  he  must  find  the 
shining  of  that  beauty  close  at  hand  and 
in  the  most  familiar  objects  ;  if  he  would 
discern  the  significance  of  life,  he  must 
invest  the  commonest  persons  and  the 
most  obscure  conditions  with  the  dig- 
nity of  divine  purpose  and  love. 
55 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

Is  life,  then,  as  some  men  have  told 
us,  an  unintelligible  paradox,  a  vast  and 
fathomless  irony  ?  Is  it  true  that,  as 
Omar  Khayyam  has  said. 

We  are  no  other  than  a  moving  row 
Of  Magic  Shadow-shapes  that  come  and  go 
Round  with  this  Sun-illumin'd  Lantern  held 
In  Midnight  by  the  Master  o{  the  Snow  ? 

The  paradoxes  of  life  have  their  root  in 
our  ignorance ;  they  are  the  result  of 
our  half-knowledge  dealing  with  half- 
truths.  The  moment  a  man  comes  to 
understand  the  order  of  the  solar  system, 
the  sun  no  longer  seems  to  revolve 
around  the  earth ;  and  the  moment  a 
man  discerns  that  this  earthly  experi- 
ence is  part  of  an  endless  life,  that  he 
is  open  to  heavenly  as  well  as  earthly 
influences,  that  behind  the  apparent  order 
there  is  another  and  a  spiritual  order, 
mystery  remains,  but  confusion  and  con- 
tradiction vanish.  There  is  no  more 
irrationality  in  teaching  a  man  a  spiritual 
lesson  through  a  sorrow,  a  loss,  or  a  sacri- 
56 


Half-Truths  and  the  Truth 

fice,  than  in  teachnig  a  child  a  fact  or 
truth  which  is  still  beyond  the  range  of 
its  full  comprehension.  All  real  educa- 
tion is  in  advance  of  the  mind's  power 
of  entire  appropriation  at  the  moment. 
The  mature  man  no  less  than  the  child 
is  always  learning  things  which  he  does 
not  perfectly  understand,  but  which  he 
will  understand  when  experience  has 
widened  or  deepened  or  ripened  his 
nature.  If  by  self-surrender  one  can 
secure  pure  and  lasting  freedom,  there  is 
no  paradox  in  the  giving  up  of  the  lesser 
for  the  greater  good  ;  if  by  losing  his  life 
a  man  can  save  that  which  is  of  more 
value  than  life,  there  is  no  jugglery  with  his 
intelligence  in  the  process.  The  moment 
one  discerns  the  spiritual  order  behind  the 
apparent  disorder,  there  are  no  longer 
any  paradoxes ;  the  apparent  contradic- 
tions resolve  themselves  into  harmonious 
adjustment  as  soon  as  one  overlooks  the 
entire  field.  There  is  no  real  antagonism 
between  the  force  which  impels  the  earth 
towards  the  sun  and  that  which  impels  it 
57 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

towards  the  abysses  of  space ;  they  are 
different  manifestations  of  the  same  force. 
In  a  shop  one  often  sees  two  belts  run- 
ning in  opposite  directions,  but  he  has  only 
to  climb  a  pair  of  stairs  to  discover  that 
a  single  belt  is  running  over  the  drum  ! 
The  earth  is  not  solitary;  it  is  part  of  a 
system,  and  can  be  understood  only  when 
it  is  so  regarded.  Man  is  not  perishable, 
but  immortal ;  the  things  which  surround 
him  are  material  means  to  spiritual  ends, 
material  symbols  of  spiritual  truths ;  life 
is  not  identical  with  its  forms  and  appear- 
ances and  conditions ;  it  is  divine  and  it 
is  eternal. 


S8 


Chapter  VIII 

Repose  in  Work  and  Strife 

THERE  are  few  things  in  human 
history  more  pathetic  than  the 
search  for  repose  —  that  well-nigh  uni- 
versal quest  which  has  taken  many  forms 
and  suffered  many  defeats,  but  has  never 
been  abandoned.  In  the  sense  in  which 
most  men  have  imaged  repose  to  them- 
selves, and  in  the  places  in  which  they 
have  looked  for  it  and  the  methods  by 
which  they  have  sought  it,  this  search 
has  been,  from  the  first,  as  hopeless  as 
the  search  for  the  fabled  fountain  of 
youth.  For  many  generations  to  imagin- 
ative souls  that  fountain  was  a  reality 
beside  which  most  things  at  hand  were 
unsubstantial  and  valueless.  The  sound 
of  its  waters,  in  ears  that  were  growing 
dull  Vv^ith  time,  was  a  music  the  melody 
59 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

of  which  was  beyond  the  reach  of  strings 
and  keys.  The  ends  of  the  earth  were 
not  too  far  to  hush  the  music  of  its  fall  ; 
nor  were  perils  of  unknown  seas  and 
dangers  of  untravelled  continents  too 
great  to  chill  the  heart  set  on  the  recovery 
of  the  perishable  bloom  of  youth.  No 
one  can  read  the  story  of  that  hopeless 
quest  without  feeling  anew  the  penetrat- 
ing irony  of  life.  Those  musical  tones 
were  always  falling  on  the  ear  of  the 
imagination,  which  never  grows  old  ;  but 
to  the  body,  which  perishes  from  the 
hour  of  birth,  they  are  forever  soundless. 
Sacrifice,  courage,  endurance,  suffering, 
and  death  could  not  bring  within  the 
reach  of  those  ardent  spirits  that  which 
never  had  existed  and  never  could  exist. 
It  was  a  quest  foredoomed  to  defeat,  and 
the  more  eagerly  it  was  prosecuted  the 
deeper  the  pathos  which  invested  it. 

In  like  manner,  with  kindred  toil  and 

sorrow  and  self-denial,  men  have  sought 

for  the   repose   which   is  complete    rest, 

entire    cessation     from    struggle,    perfect 

60 


Repose  in  Work  and  Strife 

harmony  between  the  spirit  and  its  pos- 
sessions, occupations,  and  achievements. 
In  the  throes  of  strife  they  have  expected 
the  calm  of  final  peace ;  in  the  heart  of 
the  storm  they  have  looked  for  the 
fragrant  silence  of  summer  fields  warm 
under  summer  skies;  in  the  weariness  of 
apprenticeship  they  have  anticipated  the 
poise  and  power  of  the  master ;  in  the 
ignorance  of  the  primary  school  they 
have  thought  to  find  the  ripe  knowledge 
of  the  scholar ;  in  the  long,  painful  un- 
escapable  process  of  living  they  have 
tried  to  grasp  the  fruits  and  enjoy  the 
repose  which  will  lie  in  the  hand  only 
when  the  doors  of  the  school  have  been 
closed  forever.  The  repose  which  they 
might  have  had  they  have  often  passed 
by  ;  the  repose  which  has  never  yet  come 
to  man  —  which  was  denied  even  to 
Christ  so  long  as  he  wore  the  form  and 
lived  the  life  of  man  —  they  have  sought 
with  tears  and  prayers,  with  fasting  and 
scourging,  with  every  kind  of  penance 
and  sacrifice. 

6i 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

They  have  fancied  that  this  repose  was 
a  matter  of  conditions,  and  so  they  have 
separated  from  their  fellows  and  gone  out 
into  desolate  places,  seeking  peace  in  des- 
erts and  canons  and  solitudes.  And  when 
they  were  pursued  by  the  temptations 
which  beset  them  at  home,  they  renewed 
their  vigils  and  doubled  their  stripes  and 
cried  out  to  God  in  the  bitterness  of 
despair.  Few  figures  are  more  pathetic 
than  those  of  the  Saint  Anthonys  who 
have  found  no  place  too  remote  for  the 
tempter,  and  no  seclusion  too  closely 
guarded  for  those  temptations  which  may 
find  their  occasion  in  the  conditions  which 
surround  a  man,  but  which  find  their 
opportunity  and  their  material  in  that 
nature  from  which  he  cannot  separate 
himself.  In  lonely  cells,  in  crowded  con- 
vents, in  pilgrimage  and  crusade,  in  the 
quiet  of  cathedral  close  and  in  the  rush 
and  stir  of  great  movements,  one  truth 
grows  more  and  more  clear :  that  the  re- 
pose of  perfect  harmony  between  the 
spirit  and  the  things  which  now  are  is 
62 


Repose  in  Work  and  Strife 

impossible,  and  that  the  repose  into  which 
men  may  now  enter  is  to  be  found,  not 
in  conditions,  but  in  heart  and  character. 
The  long,  pathetic  search  for  repose  in 
changed  conditions,  in  external  penances, 
in  outward  self-denials,  was  fore-doomed 
to  failure  from  the  beginning.  But  it 
has  been,  for  the  most  part,  entirely  sin- 
cere ;  and,  like  all  sincere  effort,  it  has 
borne  its  fruit.  God  permits  nothing  to 
be  wasted  into  which  the  hearts  of  men 
are  poured,  or  in  which  the  aspiration  of 
the  struggling  spirit  shines  ;  what  is  lost 
in  effort  is  constantly  saved  in  knowl- 
edge and  character.  The  vain  seeking 
has  brought  the  fruits  of  discipline  and 
sorrow ;  and  it  has  brought  also  the 
knowledge  of  that  repose  which  God 
offers  to  all  who  are  willing  to  accept  it. 

The  most  devoted  father  cannot,  by 
any  inspiration  of  love,  spare  his  child 
the  long  training  of  education  ;  the  neces- 
sity for  that  training  lies  in  the  nature  of 
things,  and  there  is  no  escape  from  it. 
More  than  this,  there  ought  to  be  no 
63 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

escape  from  it ;  for  in  its  results  lie  the 
strength,  peace,  and  joy  of  the  perfected 
life.  There  is  no  way  to  the  writing  of  the 
great  book,  the  painting  of  the  great 
picture,  the  doing  of  the  great  deed,  save 
the  way  of  patient  learning,  of  honest 
drudgery,  of  long-continued  concentra- 
tion of  time  and  toil  to  one  remote  end. 
In  that  long  discipline  the  spirit  often 
faints  and  the  heart  rebels  against  restric- 
tions which  seem  to  be  a  hopeless  bond- 
age. To  young  men  of  real  talent  there 
often  comes  an  unrest  which  is  like  the 
bitterness  of  death.  The  spirit  longs  for 
free  expression,  and  finds  itself  shut  in 
on  every  side  by  enforced  tasks ;  the 
imagination  is  in  a  tumult  of  undirected 
energy  and  passion,  but  the  hand  is  tied 
to  the  drudgery  of  the  school.  It  seems 
as  if  ease  and  repose  were  to  be  had  by 
breaking  through  all  restrictions  and 
bringing  one's  thoughts  into  direct  con- 
tact with  the  material  which  must  give 
them  form.  Many  have  followed  this 
bhnd  impulse,  and  learned  too  late  that 
64 


Repose  in  Work  and  Strife 

power  flies  out  of  the  window  when  rebel- 
lious desire  takes  the  place  of  self-deny- 
ing discipline.  Repose  in  the  arts  comes 
not  to  him  who  seizes  it,  but  to  him  who 
grows  into  it  by  growing  into  mastery 
of  himself,  his  tools,  his  materials,  and 
his  imagination.  The  splendid  freedom 
of  a  Rembrandt,  so  full  of  the  repose 
which  is  born  of  the  consciousness  of 
power,  was  won,  not  by  a  bold  dash,  but 
by  infinite  patience  and  toil. 

The  repose  which  comes  from  perfect 
achievement  was  never  yet  won  in  the 
struggle  of  life ;  but  there  is  a  repose 
which  comes  from  adjustment  to  present 
conditions,  acceptance  of  present  limita- 
tions, and  victorious  recognition  of  the  far- 
off  peace.  That  repose  is  not  only  within 
the  reach  of  every  one  who  strives  for  it 
but  it  must  be  won  if  one  is  to  secure  the 
results  of  the  long  struggle.  The  private 
soldier  may  lose  his  calmness  in  the  thick 
of  the  fight  without  inviting  disaster,  but 
the  commander  who  becomes  disturbed, 
agitated,  anxious,  puts  himself  in  the 
5  65 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

way  of  crushing  defeat.  Absolute  cool- 
ness of  temper  must  reinforce  the  high- 
est genius.  In  every  kind  of  work 
which  exacts  the  highest  energy  and 
skill,  in  every  phase  of  experience  which 
requires  clear  thought  and  resolute  action, 
in  every  moral  crisis  which  demands 
sanity,  self-control,  and  self-restraint,  the 
secret  of  a  victorious  deliverance  or 
achievement  lies  in  a  spirit  of  repose. 
To  have  a  quiet  mind  is  to  possess 
one's  mind  wholly  ;  to  have  a  calm  spirit 
is  to  command  one's  self.  For  action, 
therefore,  as  well  as  for  peace,  for 
achievement  as  well  as  for  happiness,  a 
man  must  learn  to  carry  repose  on  the 
march,  to  keep  it  in  the  struggle,  to  rest 
in  it  in  the  long  toil  of  life.  In  the 
vision  of  spiritual  mastery  the  brave 
fighter  and  the  patient  worker  often 
catches  a  glimpse  of  the  repose  of  a  gift 
perfectly  trained,  a  work  entirely  done,  a 
struggle  finally  won  ;  let  him  open  his 
spirit  to  its  reflection  in  the  hour  of  his 
toil  and  temptation. 
66 


chapter  IX 

Revelation  through  Character 

IT  is  quite  impossible  to  drop  the 
plummet  of  thought  to  the  bottom 
of  the  word  character;  so  deep  and  so 
manifold  are  the  meanings  of  this  highest 
and  most  enduring  of  all  the  aspects  of 
human  life.  There  is,  however,  one 
function  of  character  which  is  rarely 
fully  taken  into  account,  and  yet  which 
is,  in  some  respects,  its  divinest  office  : 
the  function  of  revelation.  The  noble 
characters  in  each  generation  are  the 
prophets  of  God.  It  matters  little 
whether  they  are  gifted  with  speech  or 
not;  there  is  an  eloquence  in  their  spirit, 
their  aims,  and  their  lives,  which  no  lan- 
guage can  compass.  Speech  is  effective 
and  convincing  only  while  it  is  audible ; 
character  makes  golden  tongues  out  of 
67 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

silence  itself.  It  was  said  of  a  jurist 
of  great  force  and  learning,  who  was 
on  trial  for  professional  misconduct, 
that  while  he  was  speaking  the  charges 
against  him  seemed  to  have  no  weight ; 
but  when  he  sat  down  they  instantly 
became  damning  again.  So  long  as  he 
could  speak  he  could  influence  his  fel- 
lows, but  when  he  ceased  speaking  he 
had  no  character  to  plead  for  him.  His 
genius  could  not  overcome  the  disclosure 
of  what  he  really  was,  which  his  character 
unconsciously  conveyed. 

Hume  said  that  when  he  thought  of 
his  mother  he  believed  in  immortality  ; 
there  was  that  in  her  character  which  he 
could  not  reconcile  with  final  dissolution. 
The  supreme  and  convincing  witnesses 
to  the  great  truth  of  the  endless  life  are 
the  good,  the  pure,  and  the  self-sacrific- 
ing, whose  aims  and  spirit  are  so  har- 
monious with  eternal  life  that  they  are 
inexplicable  without  It.  They  bring 
eternity  with  them,  and  make  time 
seem  a  part  of  It.  Their  whole  dealing 
68 


Revelation  through  Character 

with  life  involves  its  continuity ;  and 
there  flows  from  them  a  stream  of 
faith.  Righteousness  is  never  so  real 
as  when  it  finds  its  illustration  in  a 
human  life.  Many  a  man  knows  that 
righteousness  is  immutable  and  sover- 
eign in  this  world  because  he  remembers 
what  his  father  was.  The  momentary  suc- 
cesses of  bad  men  and  corrupt  methods 
do  not  for  an  instant  confuse  one  who 
has  been  in  close  touch  with  a  pure  and 
true  human  soul ;  a  soul  which  was  not 
only  unpurchasable,  but  which  made  the 
barter  of  principle  incredibly  mean  and 
base.  One  righteous  man  confutes  all 
the  specious  arguments  against  the  su- 
premacy of  righteousness  in  this  world ; 
such  a  man  makes  it  clear  that  right- 
eousness is  not  only  sovereign,  but  that 
it  is  the  only  realitv. 

And  character  is  not  only  a  disclosure 
and  confirmation  of  righteousness  and 
immortality ;  it  is  also  a  revelation  of 
the  spirit  and  methods  of  God.  There 
is  no  higher  function  which  a  human 
69 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

soul  may  take  upon  itself  than  this  :  to 
make  men  see  and  love  God.  It  im- 
parts to  those  who  rise  to  its  opportu- 
nities a  sanctity  and  beauty  past  all 
power  of  speech  to  express.  In  count- 
less households  there  are  women  who 
are  patiently,  in  sweet  unconsciousness 
of  their  saintly  service,  spelling  the  ways 
and  mysteries  of  God  in  words  so  simple 
that  he  who  runs  may  read.  Year  in 
and  year  out  in  these  blessed  homes 
God  becomes  real,  near,  and  divinely 
compassionate  through  this  silent  reve- 
lation of  character.  Character,  it  has 
been  well  said,  is  salvation ;  and  it  is 
salvation  not  only  for  ourselves  but  for 
others.  We  are  saved  by  the  character 
of  others,  because  that  character  breeds 
character  in  us.  There  are  many  to 
whom  God  seems  afar  off;  they  do  not 
doubt  him,  but  they  cannot  lay  hold  of 
him  as  a  companion  in  the  hour  of 
need.  To  such  natures  it  is  a  blessed 
providence  when  some  human  soul  be- 
comes a  translator  and  revealer  of  that 
70 


Revelation  through  Character 

Divine  Helper  who  has  not  yet  become 
a  Divine  Father  in  the  thought  and  feel- 
ing of  a  weak  and  sinning  child.  Hu- 
man love  becomes  in  this  way  the  pre- 
lude to  divine  love.  For  we  hold  fast 
to  the  mother  or  wife  whom  we  love  ; 
we  long  to  gain  and  keep  her  confi- 
dence ;  we  do  the  things  that  please  her, 
and  we  leave  undone  the  things  that 
distress  her;  we  harmonize  our  lives 
with  her  life  out  of  pure  love  of  her. 
Unconsciously  to  ourselves,  we  are  also 
conforming  our  lives  to  God's  will,  be- 
cause we  are  shaping  them  after  the  pat- 
tern of  one  of  God's  holy  ones. 

There  is  more,  however,  than  the 
steady  striving  to  give  our  lives  the 
order  which  another  loves ;  there  is  a 
constant  breaking  in  upon  us  of  a  deep- 
ening consciousness  of  God.  A  beauti- 
ful human  soul  always  suggests  God,  as 
the  shining  in  the  still  waters  at  night 
makes  us  instantly  aware  that  a  star  is 
above  us.  We  do  not  need  to  look  at 
it ;  we  know  that  it  is  there.  Whoever 
71 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

in  this  confused  world  has  the  supreme 
blessedness  of  living  close  to  a  beautiful 
human  soul  cannot  look  into  the  pure 
depths  of  that  soul  day  after  day  with- 
out a  constant  vision  of  God.  In  such  a 
relationship,  to  one  who  gradually  enters 
into  it,  there  is  not  only  a  growing  puri- 
fication, but  there  is  also  a  deepening 
reverence ;  a  consciousness,  becoming 
constantly  more  distinct,  that  one  is 
living  near  a  shrine  and  that  a  human 
fellowship  is  silently  becoming  trans- 
formed into  a  divine  fellowship.  Hu- 
man love  can  bring  to  one  who  evokes 
it  no  higher  tribute  than  this  con- 
sciousness, nor  can  it  take  on  any  higher 
form  or  manifestation  than  this  revela- 
tion of  the  divine  love.  When  it  rests 
here,  it  seems  already  of  heaven  rather 
than  of  earth,  and  it  carries  in  its  heart 
the  assurance  of  its  own  immortality. 


72 


chapter  X 

The  World  of  Divine  Opportunity 

NOTHING  in  human  experience  is 
more  significant  or  more  beauti- 
ful than  the  gradual  transformation  of 
things,  persons,  and  experiences  at  first 
slighted  or  passed  by  as  common  and  un- 
interesting into  things,  persons,  and  ex- 
periences noble  and  inspiring.  The 
young  world  dreamed  of  its  Christ  as 
coming  in  majesty  of  form  and  clothed 
with  all  the  visible  signs  of  sovereignty  ; 
but  the  Christ  came  in  guise  so  humble 
and  in  conditions  so  obscure  that  they 
only  discerned  the  divinity  who  had 
caught  the  great  truth  that  in  the  human 
the  divine  is  veiled  and  hidden.  The 
young  soul,  ardent,  generous,  and  aspir- 
ing, dreams  of  the  great  tasks  and  the 
noble  opportunities  at  the  ends  of  the 
73 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

earth,  or  on  some  splendid  stage;  and 
finds,  years  after,  that  the  task  was  close 
at  hand,  and  garbed  so  meanly  that  it 
seemed  but  another  of  the  weary  com- 
monplaces of  daily  life,  and  that  the 
opportunity  was,  at  the  moment  it  pre- 
sented itself,  only  a  homely  and  familiar 
chance  to  work.  The  man  of  experience 
learns  to  judge  nothing  by  its  outward 
show ;  he  has  seen  the  bravest  promise 
of  greatness  turn  to  bitter  disappoint- 
ment, and  he  has  seen  the  poor,  shabby 
door  swing  open  upon  a  noble  career  and 
a  rich  and  bountiful  life. 

No  stories  are  so  enchanting  to  the 
young  imagination,  dreaming  of  things 
to  come,  as  those  which  narrate  the  swift 
or  slow  advancement  to  fortune,  position, 
and  reputation  from  meagre  and  unprom- 
ising beginnings.  Every  man  who,  un- 
aided by  family  influence  or  fortune, 
makes  his  way  to  the  front  by  honourable 
industry  and  well-directed  ability,  is  a 
hero  in  the  eyes  of  youth,  —  a  hero  who 
has  sustained  the  test  of  manhood,  met 
74 


The  World  of  Divine  Opportunity 

the  conditions  of  worthy  success,  and 
passed  victoriously  the  obstacles  which 
lie  in  every  path  to  fortune.  Whenever 
such  a  man  tells  the  story  of  his  success, 
he  reveals  the  qualities  which  have 
brought  him  influence,  reputation,  and 
prosperity,  and  demonstrates  again  the 
familiar  truth  that  a  man's  fate  lies  in  his 
character  and  not  in  his  conditions  ;  that 
heroic  resolve,  unshakable  purpose,  and 
courageous  devotion  are  not  at  the  mercy 
of  accident  and  the  caprice  of  circum- 
stances, but  work  their,  way  and  their  will 
to  the  victorious  end.  When  the  story 
of  such  a  life  is  told,  the  eternal  romance 
of  all  noble  striving  pervades  it ;  that 
romance  which  shines  upon  the  world  in 
the  eyes  of  each  succeeding  generation  of 
youth,  and  which  draws  every  ardent 
spirit  with  irresistible  insistence.  For 
the  promise  of  life,  intelligently  under- 
stood, is  never  broken  to  those  who  are 
willing  to  meet  the  conditions  of  its  ful- 
fillment; it  is  broken  only  to  those  who 
misread  it  or  who  fail  to  stand  the  tests 
75 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

which  it  imposes.  The  romance  of  the 
successful  career  Hes  in  the  contrast  be- 
tween its  meagre  promise  and  its  noble 
achievement,  —  between  the  materials  with 
which  it  had  to  deal  and  the  imperishable 
uses  to  which  those  materials  have  been 
put. 

The  old  stories  which,  like  the  "  Ara- 
bian Nights'  Tales,"  dealt  with  magical 
forces  and  magical  effects  wrought  by 
the  swiftest  means,  have  not  only  en- 
chanted the  children  of  the  world,  but 
have  crudely  illustrated  the  truth  that 
man  is  greater  than  his  conditions  and 
has  a  magical  power  of  transforming 
them.  For  the  secret  of  magic  lies  in 
the  disparity  between  the  means  used  and 
the  ends  attained.  Investigation  of  uni- 
versal elements  has  released  more  genii 
than  ancient  magicians  ever  set  free,  and 
modern  study  of  nature  has  made  the  old 
wonder  tales,  which  were  fashioned  in 
the  world's  childhood,  tame  and  common- 
place. But  the  magic  used  by  intelli- 
gence in  dealing  with  things  is  not  so 
76 


The  World  of  Divine  Opportunity 

impressive  as  the  magic  with  which  intel- 
ligence transforms  conditions  in  the  work- 
ing out  of  human  lives.  The  story  of 
such  a  career  as  Edison's  is  more  won- 
derful than  the  story  of  his  discoveries 
and  inventions,  although  the  latter  are 
an  authentic  modern  Arabian  Nights' 
Entertainment ;  while  the  career  of  Lin- 
coln, when  one  compares  the  poverty  of 
his  youth  with  the  majesty  of  his  service 
to  the  race  and  the  splendour  of  his  world- 
wide fame,  is  more  marvellous  than  any 
tale  of  magic  ever  recited  to  eager  listeners 
in  Bagdad  or  Damascus. 

So  manifold  is  opportunity,  so  open  is 
the  road  of  the  higher  success  to  ability, 
industry,  and  character,  that  human  life 
may  be  fairly  described  as  a  divine  chance 
to  do  and  to  be  that  which  lies  in  the 
imagination  of  youth.  God  does  not 
deceive  the  fresh,  instinctive  faith  of 
childhood  ;  life  does  not  lie  to  those  who 
trust  its  promises.  It  is  commonplace  . 
only  to  those  whose  natures,  tastes,  and 
aims  are  commonplace.  To  those  who 
77 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

have  eyes  for  what  Carlyle  so  well  called 
"  the  open  secret,"  life  is  often  severe, 
painful,  and  even  tragical  in  its  happen- 
ings ;  but  it  is  never  less  than  great ;  and 
that  it  shall  be  great  in  its  ultimate  pos- 
sibilities is  all  that  we  have  a  right  to  ask 
of  it.  If  the  world  was  fashioned  by 
intelligence  and  the  conditions  of  life 
were  divinely  ordered,  the  element  of 
magic,  of  chance  in  the  noble  sense,  ought 
to  play  through  human  experience  ;  doors 
ought  to  open  on  all  sides ;  paths  ought 
to  lead  from  all  points.  So  Edison  finds 
his  way  from  the  selling  of  newspapers 
to  the  study  of  the  most  wonderful  and 
elusive  of  natural  forces,  Lincoln  rises 
out  of  the  hard  surroundings  of  the  old 
frontier  life  to  one  of  the  loftiest  places 
to  which  the  foot  of  modern  man  has 
climbed,  and  the  draper's  assistant  goes 
from  the  dull  life  of  the  shop  to  that  watch- 
ing of  morning  skies  which  left  its  imper- 
ishable record  on  the  canvases  which  bear 
the  name  of  Corot.  It  is  a  veritable  ma- 
gical world  in  which  we  live,  because  such 
78 


The  World  of  Divine  Opportunity 

tremendous  consequences  are  folded  up 
in  such  apparently  unimportant  acts, 
such  wonderful  growths  are  hidden  in 
such  tiny  and  insignificant  seeds,  such 
splendid  opportunities  constantly  present 
themselves  in  garbs  so  mean.  The  real 
value  of  things  lies  in  their  spiritual  pos- 
sibilities, and  these  possibilities  are  hidden 
even  from  the  wise  and  prudent.  The 
children  are,  after  all,  wiser  than  their 
elders,  because  they  are  willing  to  take 
God  at  his  word  and  accept  the  world  as 
something  magical  and  divine  —  a  true 
wonderland  of  the  soul,  in  which  all 
manner  of  transformations  of  the  ignoble 
into  the  noble  and  of  the  humble  into 
the  great  are  constantly  taking  place. 


79 


Chapter  XI 

The  Hills  of  God 

THE  story  is  told  of  a  teacher  in  a 
little  school  in  the  Highlands  of 
Scotland,  about  whom  the  terrified  pupils 
gathered  during  a  terrific  storm,  and 
whose  radiant  face  led  one  of  the  children 
to  ask  why  she  smiled.  "  Because  I  love 
to  think  that  it  is  my  God  who  thun- 
ders," was  the  reply.  There  was  a  time 
when  most  men  dreaded  the  deep  moun- 
tain valleys  and  the  lonely  mountain 
summits  :  but  a  larger  knowledge  of 
Nature,  born  not  only  of  fuller  investiga- 
tion but  of  deeper  love,  has  wrought  a 
revolution  of  feeling,  and  men  flee  to  the 
mountains  to-day  as  to  the  fastnesses  of 
the  spirit,  finding  in  their  solitude  and 
majesty  a  new  sense  of  the  nearness  of 
the  Infinite.  In  all  times  men  of  religi- 
ous genius  and  aspiration  have  sought  in 
80 


The  Hills  of  God 

the  silence  of  the  hills  places  of  adoration 
and  communion  for  which  the  crowded 
streets  of  cities  made  no  room.  To  be 
alone  with  God  one  must  separate  him- 
self at  times  from  men.  It  was  on  a 
lonely  mountain  summit  that  one  of  the 
greatest  spiritual  leaders  who  has  yet  ap- 
peared heard  and  recorded  those  words 
in  obedience  to  which  individual  and 
racial  characters  reach  their  highest  levels  ; 
it  was  in  a  solitary  p'ace  that  Christ 
foug^ht  in  lonely  vigils  that  battle  with 
temptation  from  which  he  returned  sin- 
less and  victorious  to  be  the  Saviour  of 
the  race ;  it  was  in  another  solitude, 
more  tragic  and  desolate,  that  he  drank 
the  final  cup  of  suifering  and  made  ready 
for  the  supreme  sacrifice. 

Nature  has  many  aspects,  and  God  is 
behind  them  all ;  but  the  mass  and 
grandeur,  the  vast  solitudes  and  deep 
recesses  in  the  heart  of  the  hills,  are,  in 
a  peculiar  sense,  the  inner  shrine  where 
He  waits  for  those  who  come,  worn  and 
confused,  from  the  noise  and  strife  of 
6  8i 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

the  world.  Here  the  sounds  of  man's 
struggle  are  lost  in  His  peace;  here  the 
fever  of  desire  and  the  agitation  of  emo- 
tion are  calmed  in  His  silence.  The 
great  hills,  purple  with  heather  or  green 
with  moss,  rise  peak  beyond  peak  in 
sublime  procession  ;  the  mountain  streams 
run  dark  and  cool  through  dim  and  hid- 
den channels,  singing  that  song  without 
words  which  is  sweet  with  all  purity  and 
fresh  with  the  cleanness  of  the  untrodden 
heights.  Through  the  narrow  passes  one 
walks  with  a  silent  joy,  born  of  a  renewed 
sense  of  relationship  with  the  sublime 
order  of  the  world,  and  of  a  fresh  com- 
munion with  the  Spirit  of  which  all  visi- 
ble things  are  the  symbol  and  garment. 
The  tranquil  lakes  gather  into  themselves 
a  beauty  which  speaks  to  the  innermost 
soul  and  liberates  the  imagination  for 
that  insight  and  vision  which,  in  distant 
places  and  amid  alien  sights  and  sounds, 
are  to  bring  back  the  peace  of  this  silent 
world.  Under  fair  skies  the  clouds  drift 
over  the  summits,  and  lay  their  fleeting 
82 


The  Hills  of  God 

shadows  softly  and  tenderly  on  the  dis- 
tant slopes.  On  dark  days  the  mists 
gather  in  the  uplands,  roll  down  through 
the  higher  valleys,  and  sweep  in  endless 
procession  across  the  landscape,  concealing 
and  then  revealing  a  new  and  wonderful 
world,  in  which  earth  and  sky  are  magic- 
ally commingled.  Through  these  parting 
and  closing  clouds  —  summits  wrapped 
in  soft  draperies  until  they  are  like 
peaks  of  submerged  continents,  and  then 
silently  reunited  as  if  a  new  earth  were 
making  —  the  mountains  gain  their  most 
mysterious  and  impressive  beauty.  Then 
the  rain  begins  to  fall  gently  on  the  far 
slopes,  steals  like  a  vast  veil  across  the 
valleys,  blurs  the  sharp  outlines,  and 
blends  the  whole  scene  in  a  soft  and  sub- 
dued harmony  of  form  and  colour  and 
atmosphere. 

One  remembers  that  these  same  hills 
have  been  the  fastnesses  of  the  persecuted 
and  the  suffering;  that  here  some  of  the 
loftiest  heroisms  in  the  history  of  the  race 
have  been  enacted.  In  lonely  defiles  and 
83 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

on  secluded  stretches  of  moss  overlook- 
ing the  mountain  passes  the  Holy  Com- 
munion has  been  taken  by  those  who 
counted  life  of  no  worth  if  the  faith  misht 
be  kept.  The  place  seems  made  for  such 
heroisms,  and,  even  in  these  gentler  days 
when  men  no  longer  suffer  death  for  the 
right  to  worship  in  their  own  way  and 
according  to  their  own  consciences,  one 
feels  that  such  martyrdoms  are  still  pos- 
sible. And  this  is  perhaps  the  greatest 
service  which  the  hills  of  God  render  to 
him  who  seeks  them  with  an  open  mind 
and  heart.  Their  grandeur  silently  dis- 
pels one's  skepticism  in  the  possible 
greatness  of  man's  life.  In  a  world 
where  such  heights  rise  in  lonely  majesty, 
the  soul,  to  which  they  speak  with  voices 
so  manifold  and  so  eloquent,  feels  anew 
the  divinity  which  shapes  its  destiny,  and 
gains  a  fresh  faith  in  the  things  that  are 
unseen  and  eternal.  From  these  sum- 
mits the  clouds  no  sooner  gather  than 
they  fall  apart,  and  the  heavens  are  serene 
and  calm  and  full  of  unsearchable  splen- 
84 


The  Hills  of  God 

dour.  Not  even  the  stain  of  blood  can 
remain  here ;  and  the  fury  of  the  storm 
is  forgotten  in  the  deeper  music  of  the 
streams  which  it  has  fed. 

Here,  amid  the  hills,  the  sublime 
thought  of  eternity  broods  like  a  mist 
which  gathers  far  beyond  the  vision  of 
man  and  sweeps  silently  down  to  nourish 
the  low-lying  fields  and  carry  plenty  to 
countless  granaries  and  food  to  the 
throngs  in  distant  cities.  Out  of  the  heat 
and  dust  of  those  cities  one  comes  back 
to  these  reservoirs  and  fountains  of  fresh 
verdure  and  exhaustless  fertility ;  out  of 
the  skepticisms  and  dimmed  vision  of 
those  cities  one  comes  back  also  to  the 
shrines  where  the  earth  offers  its  sacrifice 
and  burns  its  incense,  to  find,  in  the 
silence  and  solitude,  Eternity  visibly  and 
sublimely  symbolized.  Here  Nature  is 
the  garment  of  God,  and  man's  life,  re- 
created in  vision  and  faith,  rises  like  the 
hills  in  peace  and  purity  to  those  heavens 
which  give  it  beauty  and  fertility  and 
spiritual  significance. 
85 


Chapter  XII 

The  Companionship  of  the  Sky 

IT  is  easy  to  feel  at  home  in  quiet, 
sheltered  places  and  to  have  a  sense 
of  God's  care  and  love  in  the  cheerful 
warmth  of  the  hearth  ;  but  it  is  not  easy 
to  have  the  same  sense  of  watchful  affec- 
tion in  the  presence  of  the  great  forces  of 
nature  or  of  those  sublime  aspects  of 
beauty  and  power  which  are  worn  by  the 
sea  and  sky.  It  is  probable  that  the 
great  majority  of  men  and  women  are 
chilled  when  they  are  brought  face  to 
face  with  the  vastness  and  sublimity  of 
the  Universe.  The  pocket  map  of  cre- 
ation which  our  forefathers  carried,  with 
the  complete  and  easy  key  to  the  divine 
purpose  and  plan  which  went  with  it,  and 
which  made  the  earth  the  centre  of  the  uni- 
verse and  man  the  supreme  object  of  crea- 
86 


The  Companionship  of  the  Sky 

tive  thought,  made  faith  in  a  personal  love 
and  care  behind  all  visible  things  com- 
paratively easy  of  attainment;  but  now 
that  science  has  cast  that  little  chart  aside 
with  all  the  other  outworn  maps  of  a 
half-discovered  world,  God  seems,  to 
many  sincere  seekers  after  him,  to  have 
withdrawn  so  far  that  human  searching 
cannot  find  him,  or  to  have  become  so 
awful  in  his  lonely  infinity  that  he  has 
creatures  but  no  children.  An  elemental 
chill  seems  to  rise  from  the  abysmal 
depths  which  science  has  opened ;  an 
oppressive  silence  seems  to  reign  in  those 
limitless  regions  along  whose  farthest 
boundaries  the  stars  fade  into  fathomless 
night. 

"  We  no  longer  view  our  planet  as  the 
centre  of  the  universe,"  writes  Mr.  Illing- 
worth,  "  and  our  cosmlcal  insignificance 
is  supposed  to  argue  our  personal  unim- 
portance. It  seems  inconceivable  that, 
amid  the  limitless  immensity  of  space  and 
the  endless  possibilities  of  time,  our  earth 
should  have  been  the  scene,  and  our  race 
87 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

the  witness,  of  one  unique  divine  event." 
To  which  are  wisely  added  the  words  of 
Pascal :  "  If  the  entire  physical  universe 
conspired  to  crush  a  man,  the  man  would 
still  be  nobler  than  the  entire  physical 
universe,  for  he  would  know  that  he  was 
crushed." 

Faith  must  grow  with  knowledge,  and 
man's  conception  of  God  expand  with 
man's  comprehension  of  the  greatness  of 
the  home  which  God  has  made  for  him. 
The  time  is  not  distant  when  science  will 
be  recognized  as  the  most  helpful  friend 
religion  has  had  in  this  many-sided  cen- 
tury. For  science  has  rectified  and  puri- 
fied our  conception  of  God  as  well  as  en- 
larged and  clarified  it.  The  greater  the 
creation  the  greater  the  creator.  The 
God  of  the  whole  earth  and  of  all  men  is 
vaster  and  diviner  than  the  God  of  Israel  ; 
and  yet  the  Israelite  found  a  sense  of 
nearness  and  comfort  in  the  feeling  that 
Jehovah  was  the  God  of  his  race  which 
would  have  been  lost  if  he  had  been  told 
that  the  Jew  and  the  Greek  were  alike  in 


The  Companionship  of  the  Sky 

the  sight  of  the  Infinite.  It  is  inevitable 
that  God  should  seem  vaster  with  every 
extension  of  human  knowledge ;  not  be- 
cause he  changes,  but  because  our  capac- 
ity to  comprehend  him  and  to  follow  the 
lines  of  his  creation  constantly  enlarges. 
And  with  that  enlargement  of  conception 
there  ought  to  go  a  deepening  of  that  joy 
which  has  its  springs  in  faith.  The 
greater  our  thought  of  God,  the  greater 
must  be  our  sense  of  peace  and  safety  in 
him.  In  another  century  men  will  have 
become  familiar  with  the  larger  world  in 
which  they  live,  and  will  feel  at  home  in 
it ;  as  the  Mediterranean  peoples,  who 
once  dreaded  the  Atlantic  as  an  unknown 
and  perilous  sea,  now  find  the  greater 
ocean  less  dangerous  than  the  smaller 
one. 

Vastness  has  a  beauty  all  its  own. 
God  needs  a  great  canvas  for  some  land- 
scapes ;  and  there  is  a  glory  in  the  sky 
which  no  lesser  arch  of  space  could  con- 
tain. That  glory  cannot  be  seen  from 
the  lower  reaches  ;  it  must  have  the  clear 
89 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

sweep  of  unbroken  horizon  lines  and  the 
clarity  of  mountahi  air.  To  see  the  sky- 
in  its  majesty  one  must  be  able  to  put 
the  earth  below  or  behind  him.  There 
are  points  which  seem  to  have  been  made 
as  places  of  celestial  observation ;  sum- 
mits, crests  of  hills,  stretches  of  upland, 
which  seem  to  project  from  the  ball  of 
the  earth  so  that  the  observer  can  detach 
himself  from  the  globe  and  give  himself 
up  to  the  sky.  Night  and  silence  are 
about  him ;  the  heat  of  the  day  and  the 
turmoil  of  cities  are  forgotten.  Under  a 
veil  of  darkness  the  great  world  sleeps 
and  the  "  infinite  heavens  break  open  to 
the  highest."  It  is  no  confining  roof  of 
blue,  studded  with  lamps,  into  which 
one  looks  in  such  an  hour ;  it  is  an  in- 
finitude of  space,  star  rising  above  star 
and  world  shining  beyond  world  in  the 
farthest  reaches  of  vision.  What  radiant 
stillness,  what  soundless  movement,  what 
silent  power,  in  that  immeasurable  field 

.   .    .   unfiithom'd,  untrod. 
Save  by  Even  and  Morn,  and  the  angels  of  God. 
90 


The  Companionship  of  the  Sky 

And  yet  how  familiar  it  all  seems,  and 
how  close  to  the  life  of  man  through  its 
ministry  to  the  needs  of  a  spirit  which  is 
always  thirsting  for  beauty  without  flaw 
and  for  power  without  limitations!  In 
the  majesty  of  the  sky  on  a  cloudless 
night  infinity  seems  to  clothe  itself  with 
light  as  with  a  garment,  and  to  sit  at  the 
doors  of  our  human  life.  In  the  majesty 
of  that  companionship  all  the  material 
side  of  that  life  seems  to  turn  to  mere 
shadow  ;  what  are  the  few  years  of  mor- 
tality measured  by  the  dateless  duration 
of  the  heavens,  and  how  feeble  is  the 
power  of  man  in  comparison  with  the 
power  which  holds  those  shining  worlds 
in  their  places  ! 

But  the  spiritual  side  of  man's  life,  the 
immortal  part  of  it,  leaps  up  to  catch  that 
far-shining  splendour,  and  rejoices  in  it. 
The  little  earth,  which  is  its  school,  fades 
out  of  sight,  and  the  vast  universe,  in 
which  its  full  life  is  to  be,  visits  and  in- 
vites the  imperishable  spirit.  The  body 
becomes  a  thing  of  naught  in  that  glori- 
91 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

ous  presence  ;  but  the  soul,  which  sees  it, 
searches  it,  learns  its  secrets,  masters  its 
laws,  is  at  home  with  it.     To  be  solitary 
under  a    starlit    sky    is    to  have  a  com- 
panionship  which   not  only   uplifts    and 
glorifies   those   who   enjoy  it,  but  which 
seems  more  intimate  than  human  fellow- 
ships ;  as  if  out  of  that   vast   space  and 
through  that  sublime  silence,  God  found 
quiet  and  room   for    intimate  approach. 
Under  such  a  sky  the  spirit  expands  in 
an  ecstasy  of  delight.     Human    speech 
seems  flippant  and   discordant ;  and  the 
heavens  are  more  companionable  than  the 
earth.     The  essence  of  companionable- 
ness  is  liberation ;  escape  from  limitation 
of  expression,  lack  of  comprehension,  of 
sympathy,    of    aspiration.     The    air    of 
earth  often  grows  close  and  suffocating ; 
the   spirit    longs   for    greater    freshness, 
purity,  freedom.      Under    a    stretch    of 
starlight   there  comes  this  sense    of  de- 
tachment  from  lower   and  lesser  things, 
this  feeling  of  getting  into   one's  native 
atmosphere.     Instead  of  a  sense  of  lone- 
92 


The  Companionship  of  the  Sky 

liness  from  that  immeasurable  distance 
there  comes  a  deep  sense  of  home-com- 
ing, as  if  the  spirit  were  finding  itself  and 
its  place. 

Measured  by  the  scale  of  extension, 
one  feels  insignificant  in  the  presence  of 
that  vast  manifestation  of  the  infinite 
power ;  measured  by  intension,  one  feels 
on  an  equality  with  the  universe.  Vast 
as  it  is,  his  thought  runs  beyond  it ; 
sublime  as  it  is,  his  imagination  rises 
above  it  to  still  vaster  orders  of  form 
and  appearances  of  power.  He  is  at 
home  because  it  seems  adequate,  so  far 
as  material  beauty  and  splendour  can  be 
adequate,  to  his  conception  of  what  a 
divinely  ordered  universe  ought  to  be. 
It  satisfies  the  imagination  by  its  infini- 
tude ;  it  rests  the  soul  by  its  very  mag- 
nitude ;  it  liberates  by  the  sense  of 
power  which  it  conveys.  The  beauty, 
order,  and  power  which  shine  in  the  un- 
clouded sky  express  that  infinity  with 
which  the  spirit  feels  its  own  kinship. 
The  earth  seems  narrow,  rigid,  confined; 
93 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

the  sky  alone  gives  the  sense  of  im- 
mensity and  freedom.  The  infinite  in 
the  soul  recognizes  the  infinite  in  the 
stellar  splendour  shining  in  the  fathomless 
deeps  of  space,  and  is  at  home  with  it 
and  at  rest  in  it. 


94 


Chapter  XIII 

The  Sea  is  His 

THE  thoughts  of  the  Nation  have 
been  in  recent  years  with  the 
men  on  the  high  seas.  Their  daring, 
their  quick  response  to  every  demand  on 
character,  discipHne,  and  skill,  and  their 
brilliant  achievements,  have  kindled  the 
imagination  of  the  country  as  it  has  not 
been  kindled  for  years  past.  To  many, 
recent  events  have  been  like  the  lifting 
of  a  great  curtain  ;  they  had  been  so 
long  home-bound  that  they  had  almost 
forgotten  that  there  were  other  worlds 
beyond  the  horizon,  other  peoples  be- 
yond the  seas,  marvellous  countries 
beyond  the  dip  of  the  sky.  Suddenly, 
in  the  quietness  of  this  sluggish  content, 
reports  of  great  deeds  on  distant  oceans 
have  come  flashing  beneath  the  tides, 
strange  names  freighted  with  the  rich- 
PS 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

ness  of  the  tropics  have  crossed  the 
threshold  of  familiar  speech,  and  distant 
peoples  have  moved  into  the  field  of 
interest.  The  ships  of  the  Nation  sail- 
ing through  remote  waters  or  cruising 
along  unfamiliar  shores,  have  been 
the  forerunners  of  the  thoughts  of 
the    Nation. 

From  the  earliest  times  the  sea  has 
united  rather  than  separated  men ;  it  has 
made  the  ends  of  the  earth  accessible. 
Three-quarters  of  the  surface  of  the 
globe  is  covered  with  water ;  and  this 
vast  flood,  the  rush  of  whose  tides  seems 
to  threaten  the  very  existence  of  the 
land,  is  sometimes  spoken  of  as  if  it 
were  a  vast  and  habitless  waste !  We 
forget  how  great  a  part  of  the  most 
useful  and  heroic  life  of  the  race  has 
been  spent  on  this  trackless  waste ;  that 
armies  of  men  live  upon  it  and  by  means 
of  it  as  normally  and  constantly  as  by 
the  culture  of  the  soil  or  the  making  of 
things  of  use,  or  by  the  thousand  in- 
dustries which  minister  to  the  needs  of 
96 


The  Sea  is  His 

civilized  society.  The  sea  has  a  vast 
population  dependent  upon  it ;  a  com- 
merce every  year  increasing  in  magni- 
tude and  value;  its  wastes  are  as  care- 
fully charted  as  the  highways  through  a 
thickly  settled  country ;  its  shoals  and 
reefs  and  coast-lines  are  lighted  like  the 
streets  of  cities;  vast  companies  of 
travellers  traverse  it  from  end  to  end  as 
regularly  as  they  use  the  trains  on  the 
main  lines  of  the  great  railway  systems. 
Men  have  become  as  familiar  with  it  as 
with  the  land;  its  sources  of  revenue 
are  almost  as  great ;  its  service  to  hu- 
manity quite  as  important.  The  cease- 
less roar  of  the  surf  as  it  breaks  on  the 
shore,  the  "  moaning  of  the  homeless 
sea,"  the  fury  of  tempests,  have  bred 
the  feeling  that  the  sea  is  a  habitless 
waste ;  it  is,  in  reality,  the  home  of  mul- 
titudes of  men,  and  it  is  as  integral  a 
part  of  the  organism  of  modern  life  as 
the  grain-bearing  prairies,  or  those  fertile 
valleys  in  which  the  sunlight  seems  to 
dream  through  the  long  summer  days. 
7  97 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

When  one  takes  into  account  the  perils 
involved  in  all  the  industries  and  in  the 
general  conditions  of  life  on  land,  it 
seems  probable  that  the  dangers  of  the 
sea  are  neither  so  many  nor  so  great. 
The  fury  of  the  great  deep  is  appalling, 
but  the  genius  of  man  has  gone  a  long 
way  toward  robbing  it  of  its  terrors  ;  the 
loneliness  of  the  sea  is  at  times  oppressive 
to  the  imagination,  but  the  skill  of  man 
has  made  him  at  home  when  no  sail  is  in 
sight  and  thousands  of  restless  miles  lie 
between  him  and  land.  The  sea  becomes 
as  friendly  as  the  land  when  men  come 
to  understand  its  conditions  and  to  put 
themselves  into  harmony  with  it.  Scourge 
it  as  did  Xerxes,  and  its  waves  lap  the 
shore  in  the  scorn  of  perfect  indifference; 
but  study  stars  and  tides,  watch  winds  and 
currents,  mark  coast-lines  and  reefs,  use 
the  elements,  set  the  sail  to  the  wind  or 
the  screw  to  the  impact  of  the  water,  and 
the  sea  works  for  and  with  man  as  cheer- 
fully and  generously  as  the  land.  It  is 
the  terror  of  the  timid  and  the  peril  of 
98 


The  Sea  is  His 

the  ignorant  and  wilful ;  but  it  is  the  joy 
of  the  brave  and  the  ally  of  the  intelli- 
gent and  skilful.  It  is  God's  in  pre- 
cisely the  same  sense  in  which  the  earth 
is  his;  "for  He  made  it."  And  what 
God  has  made  is  for  man's  use,  safety, 
and  growth  whenever  and  wherever  he  is 
strong  enough  and  wise  enough  to  read 
God's  thoughts  and  follow  the  lines  of 
God's  purpose. 

The  sea  has  been  the  friend  of  man  in 
a  special  and  peculiar  sense.  It  has  not 
only  fed  and  clothed  him  and  made  a 
highway  for  him,  but  it  has  invited  him 
to  do  heroic  deeds,  and  it  has  stirred  his 
imagination  generation  after  generation. 
Its  perils  have  seemed  to  invest  the  re- 
wards it  offered  with  a  compelling  charm 
for  the  daring  and  adventurous;  its  spell 
has  wrought  on  the  most  heroic  spirits. 
The  first  sailors  were  explorers,  and 
therefore  heroes.  No  charts  traced  their 
course  for  them ;  no  lights  burned  on 
strange  coasts  to  guide  their  perilous 
ways ;  no  bells  tolled  on  dangerous  reefs 
99 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

or  were  rung  by  the  swing  of  the  waves. 
They  were  beset  with  unknown  perils; 
they  faced  unlmagined  calamities ;  but 
their  galleys  bravely  broke  the  solitude 
of  the  Mediterranean,  passed  beyond  the 
Pillars  of  Hercules  into  the  vast  outer 
sea,  and  through  a  thousand  perilous 
years  crossed  and  recrossed  that  sea  until 
it  has  become  a  lighted  highway  of  com- 
merce. The  story  of  the  Sirens  seems 
so  probable  that  one  who  loves  the  sea  is 
often  tempted  to  accept  it  as  history. 
Voices  are  always  calling  from  out  the 
distance  and  the  shifting  mists ;  voices 
full  of  a  wonderful  music,  with  tones  that 
set  the  heart  vibrating,  and  echo  in  the 
imagination  like  the  sounds  of  a  vaster 
world.  That  music  has  lured  many  to 
the  fury  of  devouring  seas,  but  it  has  in- 
vited more  to  brave  deeds  and  splendid 
achievements.  The  sea  has  a  nobler 
melody  than  the  song  of  the  Siren;  out 
of  its  deeps  there  rises  the  great  music 
of  freedom,  faith,  and  courage  ;  that  song 
of  life  which  brave  spirits  are  attuned  to 

lOO 


The  Sea  is  His 

hear,  and  to  the  music  of  which  the 
heroic  in  every  age  have  moved  gallantly 
on  to  great  adventures  and  achievements. 
God's  world  is  not  only  a  world  of 
fertile  fields  and  gardens  sv/eet  with  flow- 
ers, of  quiet  firesides  and  of  peaceful 
industry  ;  it  is  a  world  of  peril,  sacrifice, 
hardship,  and  heroic  adventure  as  well. 
The  wise  man  loves  the  ways  of  peace 
and  ease ;  but  he  loves  also  the  danger 
of  the  great  opportunity,  the  peril  of  the 
great  undertaking,  the  chances  of  heroic 
search  and  trust.  The  heart  must  be  by 
the  fireside,  but  the  spirit  must  know  the 
ends  of  the  earth ;  for  "  the  earth  is  the 
Lord's,  and  the  fullness  thereof,"  and 
the  children  of  the  Infinite  cannot  reject 
any  part  of  their  heritage.  It  is  better 
to  go  down  with  the  tides  than  to  sit 
always  in  inglorious  content.  Man  is  an 
adventurer,  not  a  lotus-eater;  he  was 
framed  to  be  taught  by  experience,  not 
to  be  shielded  in  inglorious  ease.  "  He 
makes  noble  shipwreck  who  is  lost  in  seek- 
ing worlds,"  says  Leasing ;  and  the  great 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

critic's  thought  may  be  rounded  out  by 
adding  Channing's  beautiful  line:  "  If  my 
bark  sinks,  'tis  to  another  sea."  The 
song  of  the  sea,  which  rises  and  falls  with 
the  tide  along  the  shores  of  the  world,  is 
the  song  of  life  for  hearts  that  grow  cold 
in  the  selfishness  of  mere  comfort,  for  the 
imagination  that  loses  its  larger  reach  in 
the  sensuous  warmth  of  fruitful  valleys. 
Far  inland  that  song  is  heard  by  those 
who  are  in  peril  of  becoming  the  children 
of  a  day  instead  of  the  sons  of  God  ;  like 
a  faint  music  it  sings  in  the  hearts  of  the 
reapers  at  the  centre  of  the  continent, 
and  straightway  the  great  world  beyond 
the  horizon's  rim  sweeps  into  view. 
There  is  a  restlessness  which  is  idle  and 
sterile ;  but  there  is  also  a  discontent 
which  is  born  of  man's  instinct  to  know 
what  is  in  life  and  to  mix  himself  with  its 
deepest  movement.  And  so  God's  sea 
sings  forever  in  the  ears  of  men  that  song 
of  seeking  and  daring  and  risking  which 
is  the  song  of  life. 

And  how  beautiful  the  sea  is  !     With 
1 02 


The  Sea  is  His 

what  radiancy  of  colour,  what  soft  loveli- 
ness, what  splendour  of  light,  God  has 
clothed  it  as  with  a  garment !  The  land 
has  its  majesty  of  mountain  outline,  its 
endless  charm  of  varying  form ;  but  the 
sea  is  all  motion,  atmosphere,  and  chang- 
ing light.  Its  voice  seems  to  come  from 
far  beyond  the  horizon,  and  all  its  beauty 
is  steeped  in  mystery.  The  land  reveals 
its  resources  of  use  and  charm  ;  one  feels 
that  he  may  count  and  possess  them  ;  but 
the  sea  hides  and  baffles  and  eludes.  Its 
secret  is  never  told ;  one  never  becomes 
familiar  with  it;  it  makes  its  appeal 
always  to  the  imagination,  never  to  the 
memory.  Is  it  not  a  symbol  of  that 
mystery  which  encircles  man's  life  as  the 
sea  encircles  its  islands  ?  A  mystery 
sometimes  of  darkness  and  storm,  and 
sometimes  of  unsearchable  light  and 
splendour ;  the  mystery  of  forces  not 
yet  mastered,  of  elements  not  yet  com- 
prehended, of  a  world  vaster  and  more 
wonderful  than  that  in  which  we  build 
our  homes  and  plant  our  gardens  ? 
103 


J  2 


Chapter  XIV 

In  Troubled  Times 

THERE  are  times  of  trouble,  when 
anxiety,  care,  suffering,  or  sorrow 
come  to  a  man,  and  he  feels  himself  iso- 
lated from  his  fellows  by  the  very  privacy 
of  his  experience;  and  there  are  troubled 
times,  when  change,  uncertainty,  and 
wide  possibilities  of  general  calamity  are 
abroad,  and  communities  or  nations  drink 
the  cup  of  anguish  together.  In  such 
crises,  private  sorrows  are  rivulets  which 
flow  from  the  great  current  of  public 
sorrow,  and  individual  calamity  is  merged 
into  general  calamity.  Society  has  its 
deep  experiences,  its  sacrifices,  its  mo- 
ments of  anguish,  no  less  than  the  indi- 
vidual men  and  women  who  compose  it. 
In  these  better  years,  in  which  the  world 
has  measurably  pushed  back  the  old 
104 


In  Troubled  Times 

frontiers  of  barbaric  spirit  and  method, 
and  kindlier  ways  and  works  have  come, 
we  are  in  danger  of  forgetting  the  times 
of  anguish  through  which  the  world  has 
passed ;  the  cups  of  suffering  which  it 
has  drained ;  the  painful  waiting  for 
returning  peace  and  prosperity ;  the 
weariness  of  spirit  which  followed  close 
upon  long  periods  of  strain  and  grief  and 
unrest.  In  personal  sorrow  the  founda- 
tions upon  which  one  has  built  external 
fortune  remain  undisturbed  ;  in  troubled 
times  these  foundations  are  shaken, 
and  the  very  bases  of  the  world  are 
moved. 

Through  sorrowful  ways  m.en  have 
climbed  to  the  heights  from  which  they 
now  look  into  the  heavens  and  over  the 
landscape  of  life.  Again  and  again  social 
revolutions  have  broken  up  the  estab- 
lished order,  and  men  have  faced  moral 
and  civic  chaos  with  sinking  hearts  ;  again 
and  again  the  darkness  of  despair  has 
settled  upon  the  earth,  and  men  have 
asked  in  anguish  of  spirit  if  there  were 
105 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

no  God.  Think  of  the  burden  which 
must  have  rested  on  the  spirit  of  a 
high-minded  and  far-seeing  Roman  in 
those  tragic  years  when  the  world  he 
knew  was  steadily  crumbling  before  the 
relentless  sweep  of  barbarism  !  The  old 
order  was  visibly  passing ;  its  faith  was 
dying,  its  civic  power  slipping  from  its 
feeble  grasp,  its  moral  energy  spent ; 
nothing  was  before  it  but  swifter  decline 
and  hurrying  death.  And  centuries  were 
to  pass  before  a  new  order  was  to  rise  out 
of  the  wreckage.  It  was  a  tragic  age, 
and  there  must  have  been  a  wide  and 
deep  sense  of  despair  in  the  souls  of  the 
best  men  and  women.  A  kindred  hope- 
lessness spread  through  Germany  during 
the  century  of  violence  and  devastation 
which  followed  the  Reformation  ;  when 
ruined  cities,  desolate  fields,  blasted  in- 
dustries, and  wide  wreckage  of  home  and 
life  sapped  the  vitality  of  the  people. 
Under  the  shadow  of  a  calamity  so  gen- 
eral and  so  crushing  personal  misfortunes 
were    Vv^ell-nlgh    obliterated.       Through 

io6 


In  Troubled  Times 

such  a  storm  of  sorrow  this  country 
passed  a  generation  ago.  There  were 
wide  tracts  of  fertile  territory  which  were 
blackened  with  fire  and  ruin ;  there  were 
countless  homes  destroyed  in  the  general 
conflagration  ;  and  there  were  no  homes 
which  sorrow  might  not  enter,  no  firesides 
where  care  and  anxiety  did  not  find  a 
place.  For  there  are  times  when  the 
sorrows  of  nations  rise  like  a  flood,  and 
all  the  sweet  places  of  peace  and  happi- 
ness, the  quiet  gardens  of  beauty  and 
fruitfulness,  which  men  have  slowly  and 
painfully  made  for  themselves,  are  men- 
aced with  destruction. 

In  troubled  times  those  who  sufl^er 
have  the  comfort  of  companionship.  In 
a  time  of  trouble  a  man  whose  little 
garden  of  happiness  is  blighted  while  all 
the  landscape  lies  in  the  sun  is  tempted 
to  carry  his  grief  into  solitude  and  add  to 
his  anguish  the  sense  of  loneliness  ;  in 
troubled  times,  when  the  same  care  sits 
at  all  hearths,  men  instinctively  turn  to 
each  other.  At  sea,  when  the  ship  is  in 
107 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

great  peril,  the  passengers  crowd  together  ; 
not  because  they  can  escape  peril  by  fac- 
ing it  in  company,  but  because  they  can 
gain  courage  by  companionship.  The 
sense  of  human  kinship  grows  fresh  and 
keen  when  men  stand  together  in  the 
face  of  a  common  danger ;  the  feeling  of 
brotherliness  is  born  anew  in  hearts  that 
are  overshadowed  by  the  same  anxiety. 
A  nation  silently  reaffirms  its  unity  when 
it  enters  upon  one  of  those  paths  along 
which  loss  and  death  await  each  traveller. 
The  animosities  of  conflicting  interests, 
the  jealousies  of  localities,  the  indifi^erence 
bred  of  preoccupation,  dissolve  like  a 
mist,  and  men  look  into  each  other's  faces 
again  and  know  that  they  are  brothers. 
Marvellous  moral  changes  are  wrought 
when  a  nation  which  has  forgotten  the 
perils  of  society  in  its  own  prosperity 
suddenly  finds  itself  face  to  face  with  the 
tragic  side  of  life.  In  such  an  hour, 
when  the  din  of  traffic  sinks  into  silence 
and  the  voices  of  contention  and  discord 
are  hushed,  a  whole  people  sometimes 
1 08 


In  Troubled  Times 

hears  that  still  small  voice  which  has  its 
warning  and  its  consolation  for  nations 
as  for  individuals. 

Troubled  times  are  often  noble  times ; 
for  they  put  an  end  to  ancient  wrongs 
and  usher  in  the  new  day  of  peace  and 
righteousness.  In  easy  and  opulent  years 
when  the  earth  yields  her  increase  almost 
without  effort,  and  trade  thrives  almost 
without  watching,  men  are  always  in  peril 
of  becoming  indifferent  to  the  higher 
interests  of  life,  of  losing  that  vigour  which 
makes  manhood  a  synonym  for  power, 
of  becoming  indifferent  to  the  claims  and 
sorrows  of  others  so  long  as  they  them- 
selves are  left  in  peace.  When  the  air 
grows  heavy  and  men  grow  languid,  the 
breaking  of  the  storm  is  the  swift  and 
startling  announcement  that  God  remem- 
bers and  cares  though  we  forget.  In 
merciful  severity  God  sometimes  arouses 
us  from  our  slumbers  and  bids  us  face 
our  responsibilities  and  do  our  work. 
The  birth-pang  of  a  society  which  is 
entering  upon  a  larger  life  is  often  full  of 
lOg 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

anguish,  but  is  better  than  the  painless 
lethargy  which  precedes  death. 

There  Is  no  true  life  for  the  community 
or  the  nation  without  sacrifice  ;  no  real 
growth  without  the  pains  of  toil  and 
change  and  the  chances  of  sorrow.  We 
cannot  share  the  incalculable  blessings 
which  society  confers  upon  us  without 
also  sharing  its  perils  and  bearing  its 
burdens.  If  the  general  sorrow  enters 
our  household  and  becomes  a  personal 
grief,  that  grief  is  the  sacrifice  we  offer 
for  country  and  humanity.  There  is  an 
anguish  which  is  also  the  divinest  of  op- 
portunities and  privileges  ;  it  is  the  an- 
guish of  bearing  the  cross,  not  for  our- 
selves, but  for  others  ;  of  laying  our  lives 
down  that  others  may  take  their  lives  up 
in  nobler  ways  and  happier  times.  God 
is  never  nearer  to  comfort  and  sustain 
than  in  troubled  times,  because  he  is 
never  more  evidently  working  his  will  in 
the  wide  and  confused  movements  of  the 
world. 


Chapter  XV 

In  Times  of  Change 

THE  human  spirit  craves  change 
and  action,  and  it  also  craves 
rest  and  permanence.  Those  whose 
vitality  is  high,  whose  energy  is  alert, 
whose  ardor  is  contagious,  cannot  find 
contentment  in  repose ;  they  need  the 
stir  and  opportunity  of  large  movements 
and  wide  activities.  It  is  this  deep  spirit- 
ual necessity  which  has  carried  men  into 
unknown  perils,  into  unsailed  seas,  into 
unexplored  continents.  It  is  not  mere 
restlessness,  nor  is  it  sheer  recklessness  ; 
it  is  the  working  out  of  an  instinct  which 
lies  deep  in  human  nature.  There  are 
long  stretches  of  luxurious  years  in  the 
history  of  the  race,  long  periods  of  slug- 
gish inaction  ;  but  for  the  most  part  the 
history  of  men  is  the  story  of  a  wonder- 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

ful  journey.  There  have  been  pauses  in 
the  journey ;  times  when  the  inn  has 
seemed  so  pleasant  that  the  travellers 
have  loitered  along,  reluctant  to  break 
the  charm  of  restful  hospitality ;  but 
there  has  always  come  a  morning  when 
the  good-byes  were  said  and  the  journey 
resumed.  Sometimes  these  places  of 
repose  have  grown  beautifal  with  art  and 
use  and  love  and  memory  ;  so  beautiful 
that  this  very  loveliness  has  woven  a 
spell  of  almost  magical  power  to  beguile 
and  detain  ;  sometimes  the  travellers 
have  lingered  so  long  that  they  have 
almost  forgotten  the  necessity  of  the 
journey  in  the  permanence  and  perfec- 
tion of  their  surroundings.  But  that 
destiny,  which  is  not  chance  but  Provi- 
dence, has  finally  asserted  itself,  and, 
with  bitter  regrets  and  sorrowful  tears, 
the  travellers  have  set  out  again  on  the 
endless  quest. 

There  are  few  events  in  history  so  im- 
pressive to  the  imagination  as  the  jour- 
neying   of  the    race.      When    the    mist 


In  Times  of  Change 

rises  on  the  earliest  morning  of  the  his- 
toric day  of  man's  life  in  this  world, 
there  comes  into  view  the  long  proces- 
sion of  humanity  on  the  march  ;  races 
emerging  from  those  great  plains  of 
Central  Asia  where  man  seems  to  have 
learned  his  earliest  lessons,  and  seek- 
ing new  homes  in  the  south  and  west. 
Across  the  Indus  and  the  Hellespont 
the  travellers  move  in  long  procession. 
They  rest  for  a  time ;  they  build,  adorn, 
organize,  expand  ;  great  cities  and  noble 
works  of  art  arise;  the  quest  seems  to 
be  over.  But  the  march  is  arrested,  not 
ended.  The  column  bivouacks  for  the 
night ;  in  the  morning  it  is  once  more 
afield.  The  long  line  traverses  Greece 
and  Italy;  rests  awhile  and  sweeps  on 
to  the  Atlantic ;  pauses  again ;  hoists 
sail  and  plunges  into  the  wilderness  of 
the  New  World ;  pauses  again,  and 
again  seeks  its  fortune  in  Africa,  in  the 
remote  islands  of  the  Southern  Seas ; 
goes  back  to  the  old  home  in  the  far 
East,  and  starts  afresh  with  other  hopes 
8  113 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

and  methods  and  plans.  In  the  long 
vision  of  history  there  is  no  permanence 
of  place  or  condition  ;  the  race  seems 
smitten  with  an  unrest  which  drives  it 
hither  and  thither  like  the  waves  of 
the  sea. 

And  this  constant  movement  goes  on, 
not  only  in  material,  but  in  intellectual  and 
spiritual  spheres.  Society  is  continually  re- 
adjusting its  institutions  to  changes  in  its 
condition.  The  forms  of  government  are 
in  constant  flux,  passing  through  long 
series  of  transformations ;  for  as  the 
spirit  Is  liberated  it  demands  larger  range 
and  scope.  History  is  the  record  of  the 
expansion  of  the  spirit,  and  of  its  en- 
deavour to  bring  political  Institutions  and 
social  conditions  Into  harmony  with  it- 
self. In  like  manner,  and  from  a  kin- 
dred necessity,  that  spirit  is  always 
reconstructing  Its  systems  of  thought. 
Such  a  truth  as  that  which  Charles 
Darwin  Illustrated  with  such  wealth  of 
knowledge  and  brought  into  such  clear 
light  Involves  a  reconstruction  of  the 
114 


In  Times  of  Change 

whole  philosophy  of  life  ;  for  truth  in 
one  field  is  truth  in  all  fields,  and  a  dis- 
covery in  physiology  is,  sooner  or  later, 
a  discovery  in  philosophy  and  theology. 
The  history  of  thought  is  one  long  re- 
cord of  change  ;  not  of  restless  movement 
from  point  to  point,  but  of  expansion 
from  stage  to  stage.  In  religion  there  is 
the  same  progression,  in  spite  of  the 
passionate  efforts  of  formalists  of  all 
creeds  to  identify  the  spiritual  life  with 
certain  unchanging  interpretations  of 
facts.  The  facts  remain,  but  they  are 
seen  from  different  points  of  view  by 
successive  generations ;  they  are  seen  in 
different  relations  as  the  result  of  that 
disclosure  of  truth  which  is  always  tak- 
ing place.  A  living  God  in  a  living 
world,  and  a  progressive  revelation  of 
that  God  in  knowledge  and  experience, 
bring  religion  within  the  sweep  of  that 
majestic  movement  which  bears  men  for- 
ward, like  a  rising  tide,  to  fuller  knowl- 
edge, clearer  vision,  and  larger  life. 

All  things  are  In  motion  ;  science  tells 
115 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

us  that  the  stabiHty  of  matter  is  only  ap- 
parent, and  that  what  seems  to  be  im- 
movably solid  is  in  inconceivably  rapid 
motion.  Is  there,  then,  no  rest  for  the 
soul  which  longs  for  certainty,  repose, 
and  unshaken  foundations  ?  There  is 
the  only  true  rest :  rest  in  growth.  The 
stable  and  unchanging  element  in  this 
world  is  not  in  the  things  which  God 
has  made ;  it  is  in  God's  character  and 
purpose.  That  which  gives  a  great  life 
unity  is  not  fixity  of  policy,  but  fixity 
of  principle.  The  unity  of  such  a  life 
as  Mr.  Gladstone's  is  to  be  sought  for, 
not  in  rigid  adherence  to  the  theories  of 
politics  with  which  it  set  out,  but  in 
unshaken  loyalty  to  what  the  man  be- 
lieved to  be  the  will  of  God  in  the  gov- 
ernment of  men.  The  highest  consis- 
tency is  found  in  continuity  of  growth, 
not  in  maintaining  an  unchanged  posi- 
tion. In  like  manner,  the  enduring  ele- 
ment in  this  changing  life  is  to  be  found 
in  the  quest  of  the  soul,  not  in  the  per- 
manence of  its  habitations.  The  line  of 
ii6 


In  Times  of  Change 

expansion,  growth,  aspiration,  is  the  Hne 
of  light  through  all  the  darkness  and 
mystery  of  mutation.  That  which  re- 
veals the  greatness  of  the  race  is  its  in- 
ability to  find  rest  in  any  habitations 
which  it  builds  for  itself;  it  has  another 
home,  and  to  that  home  it  travels  ;  often 
with  weary  and  halting  step,  but  with  a 
divine  instinct  in  its  heart.  The  bird 
rests  at  a  dizzy  height  on  even  wing ; 
and  the  same  rest  is  offered  to  the  spirit 
of  man  ;  for  God  made  the  air  as  well 
as  the  earth,  and  the  only  safety  for  the 
soul  is  in  movement  towards  Him. 


117 


Chapter  XVI 

The  Root  of  Courage 

THERE  is  no  real  courage  unless 
there  is  real  perception  of  danger. 
The  man  who  does  not  comprehend  the 
perils  which  surround  him,  and  is  there- 
fore calm  and  collected,  is  not  courage- 
ous ;  he  is  simply  ignorant.  And,  in  like 
manner,  the  unimaginative  man,  who  has 
no  consciousness  of  danger  until  he  looks 
straight  into  its  eyes,  is  not  courageous ; 
he  is  dull  and  sluggish.  The  highest 
courage  is  manifested  only  by  the  man 
who  knows  what  he  faces  and  fully  real- 
izes it.  To  sail  over  mines  of  which  the 
ship's  master  has  no  knowledge  involves 
no  intrepidity ;  to  be  able  to  locate  every 
mine  in  the  channel,  and  then  to  pass 
calmly  over,  shows  the  pluck  and  dash 
which  stir  the  admiration  of  the  world. 
ii8 


The  Root  of  Courage 

The  boy  of  sluggish  temper  finds  noth- 
ing in  the  blackness  of  the  woods  after 
nightfall,  and  goes  on  his  way  In  easy 
indifference  ;  the  boy  of  quick  imagina- 
tion faces  an  invisible  company  of  strange 
creatures,  and  his  quick  advance  into  the 
mysterious  gloom  means  a  victory  over 
himself.  The  finer  the  organization,  the 
clearer  the  perception  of  danger  and  the 
greater  the  courage  required  to  face  it. 
The  real  hero  Is  not  the  man  who  is 
Insensible  to  peril,  but  he  who  overcomes 
a  quick  sensitiveness  to  its  presence. 
Some  of  the  bravest  spirits  the  world  has 
known  have  shown  every  evidence  of 
that  shrinking  of  the  body  which  we  call 
fear;  but  they  vanquished  the  hesitation  of 
the  nerves  by  the  decision  of  the  spirit. 

To  feel  keenly  the  perils  of  life  is  not 
to  be  cowardly ;  It  is  to  have  adequate 
knowledge  and  sensitiveness  of  mind. 
The  man  who  does  his  daily  work  with- 
out thought  of  the  great  natural  forces 
which  hold  him  In  their  grasp,  of  the 
grave  possibilities  of  calamity  which  are 
119 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

never  absent  from  society,  of  the  count- 
less dangers  that  beset  the  individual  life, 
may  be  faithful  and  honest,  but  cannot  be 
heroic ;  fDr  the  hero  is  the  man  who 
looks  all  these  perils  in  the  face,  and  goes 
quietly  on  his  way  to  his  journey's  end. 
No  man  can  live  in  this  world  with  an 
open  mind  and  an  active  imagination 
without  constant  perception  of  many 
kinds  of  danger ;  and  the  more  such  a 
man  knows  and  the  greater  his  ability  to 
realize  the  existence  of  things  which  are 
invisible  becomes,  the  keener  will  be  his 
perception  of  the  possibilities  of  risk  and 
loss.  The  unsensitlve  man  lives  without 
fear  because  he  sees  no  peril  in  his  situa- 
tion ;  the  sensitive  man  who  is  also 
courageous  lives  without  fear  because  he 
sends  his  thought  through  all  the  possi- 
bilities of  danger  to  the  ultimate  safety. 
For  the  highest  courage  has  its  root  in 
faith.  One  may  be  bold  because  he  is 
ignorant  or  because  he  lacks  sensitive- 
ness ;  one  may  be  indifferent  to  danger 
because  he  is  indifferent  to  fate  ;  one  may 


The  Root  of  Courage 

be  brave  from  that  instinctive  pluck 
which  fDcusses  all  a  man's  powers  on  the 
doing  of  the  thing  in  hand,  or  the  resolute 
holding  of  the  place  to  which  one  has 
been  assigned ;  but  the  quality  which 
sees  with  clear  intelligence  all  the  possi- 
bilities of  peril,  which  is  sensitive  to  pain 
and  loss,  which  loves  life  and  light  and 
the  chances  of  work,  and  yet  calmly  faces 
calamity  and  death,  is  born  of  faith,  and 
grows  to  splendid  maturity  by  the  nur- 
ture of  faith.  Peter  in  the  court  of  the 
High  Priest's  house  was  a  coward  be- 
cause his  faith  was  faint  and  uncertain ; 
Peter  after  the  Resurrection  was  a  hero 
because  his  faith  had  triumphed  over 
the  weakness  of  his  nature.  The  early 
martyrs  died  with  smiles  on  their  up- 
lifted faces,  enduring  torture  and  death 
as  seeing  Him  who  is  invisible.  Gen- 
eral Havelock  once  said  that  in  every 
regiment  of  British  troops  there  are  one 
hundred  men  who  would  storm  the  gates 
of  hell,  and  eight  hundred  who  would 
follow   them.     The   eight  hundred  were 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

inspired  by  faith  in  their  dauntless  com- 
rades;  the  one  hundred  by  faith  in  their 
commanders,  their  cause,  their  prestige, 
their  training,  or  themselves.  In  such 
a  troop  as  the  famous  Gordon  High- 
landers, whose  history  has  been  one  long 
record  of  dauntless  courage,  the  very 
tradition  of  daring  inspires  faith.  Such 
fighters  may  be  annihilated,  but  they 
cannot  be  beaten  into  retreat.  There 
is  something  in  which  they  believe 
more  passionately  than  they  believe  in 
life. 

A  keen  observer,  who  is  also  one  of 
the  most  vivid  of  contemporary  writers, 
recently  said  in  conversation  that  the 
greatest  fighters  he  had  known  were  by 
temperament  and  disposition,  the  most 
peaceful  of  men.  He  named  more  than 
one  famous  English  soldier,  whose  name 
is  a  synonym  for  daring  audacity,  who 
exhausts  all  the  arts  of  diplomacy  before 
resorting  to  arms,  who  hates  war,  and  yet 
who  fights  with  Titanic  energy  and  ap- 
parent recklessness  when  the  battle  is  on. 


The  Root  of  Courage 

These  are  men  of  true  courage,  because 
they  face  the  issues  of  life  and  death,  not 
with  the  stolidity  of  ignorance  or  the 
blind  pluck  of  brute  force,  but  with  clear 
intelligence  of  all  that  war  involves. 
The  bravery  of  the  Greek  is  more  admir- 
able than  that  of  the  Turk,  because  the 
Greek  is  intensely  alert  and  sensitive, 
while  the  Turk  is  stolid  and  indifferent. 
It  is  said  that  no  troops  are  so  quiet 
under  fire  as  the  Turkish  troops. 
Nothing  disturbs  or  excites  them.  Under 
the  play  of  murderous  guns  they  move 
as  calmly  as  if  they  were  deploying  on  -a 
parade-ground.  In  some  cases  this 
courage  is  the  fruit  of  a  fanatical  religious 
faith  ;  in  most  cases  it  is  due  to  lack  of 
physical  and  mental  sensitiveness. 

The  root  of  the  noblest  courage  is 
faith  in  God.  The  courage  that  inspires 
is  clear-eyed  and  sensitive.  Men  do  not 
care  for  the  fluent  condolence  of  the 
comforter  who  has  never  known  grief; 
they  long  for  the  word  of  one  who  has 
passed  through  a  like  trial  and  been  vic- 
123 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

torious.  The  man  whose  optimism  is  a 
matter  of  perfect  health,  and  who  takes 
no  account  of  the  black  mysteries  and 
the  tragic  sorrows  of  life,  can  never  lead 
his  fellows ;  we  follow  those  only  who 
have  faced  all  the  horror  of  darkness  and 
who  feel  the  full  weight  of  the  great  and 
terrible  burden  of  the  world.  Courage 
becomes  contagious  and  inspiring  only 
where  it  grows  like  a  beautiful  flower  in 
the  very  heart  of  the  storm.  If  Christ 
had  not  drunk  the  cup  of  anguish  to  the 
bottom,  he  would  not  have  been  the 
supreme  comforter.  The  courage  which 
shines  like  a  light  on  the  confused  and 
storm-swept  field  of  life  must  face  and 
feel  all  the  perils  and  yet  rise  above 
them  ;  it  must  be  encompassed  with  all 
the  mists  and  clouds  of  earth  and  yet 
pierce  them  to  the  vision  of  the  undimmed 
sun  above  all  fogs  and  blackness.  There 
is  no  real  rest  until  we  reach  God  ;  there 
is  no  noble  and  inspiring  courage  until 
we  trust  in  him.  When  we  build  on 
such  a  faith,  floods  may  break  on  the 
124 


The  Root  of  Courage 

foundations,  but  cannot  move  them ; 
clouds  may  obscure  the  sun,  but  cannot 
destroy  it.  "  You  may  kill  us,  but  you 
cannot  hurt  us,"  said  one  of  the  noblest 
of  the  early  martyrs  to  his  persecutors. 
"  If  God  be  for  us,  who  can  be  against 
us : 


125 


Chapter  XVII 

Not  Renunciation,  but  Co-operation 

THE  ascetic  ideal  of  the  religious  life 
very  slowly  relaxes  its  hold  on  the 
imagination ;  and  renunciation  is  still,  to 
many  pious  minds,  the  supreme  evidence 
of  the  life  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man. 
Submission,  surrender,  self-effacement, 
have  so  long  had  the  heaviest  emphasis 
that  we  have  come  to  regard  them  as 
ends  in  themselves.  This  is  not,  how- 
ever, the  ideal  of  Christ,  nor  is  it  the 
ideal  which  the  healthy  human  spirit 
demands,  and  in  the  attainment  of  which 
it  finds  satisfaction.  Readiness  to  give 
up  everything  is,  indeed,  the  attitude  of 
those  whose  lives  seek  their  law  of  action 
in  obedience  to  the  will  of  God  ;  but  sur- 
render is  not,  in  itself,  an  end ;  it  is  al- 
ways a  means  to  something  more  positive 
126 


Not  Renunciation,  but  Co-operation 

and  enduring.  Renunciation  is  often  the 
sublimest  possible  act  of  a  human  soul; 
but  renunciation,  at  its  best  and  highest, 
is  negative  ;  it  is  surrendering  something, 
giving  up  something.  Renunciation  and 
submission  find  their  value  in  the  fact 
that  they  open  the  way  for  something 
higher  and  more  enduring.  When  the 
martyr  dies,  it  is  the  relation  of  his  death 
to  his  faith  which  gives  it  supreme 
dignity ;  when  the  long-cherished  hope 
is  surrendered,  the  man  does  not  linger 
at  the  place  of  renunciation  —  he  takes 
refuge  on  some  higher  plane.  And  this 
not  as  a  matter  of  spiritual  barter,  of  cal- 
culated exchange  of  the  lesser  for  the 
greater ;  but  because  life  finds  its  satis- 
faction in  achievement.  A  man  Is  often 
called  upon  to  renounce  that  upon  which 
he  has  set  his  heart,  and  renunciation  is 
then  the  highest  duty  ;  but  there  Is  al- 
ways something  beyond  It;  It  opens  the 
way  to  some  kind  of  positive  achieve- 
ment. 

The   highest  type  of  character  is  not 
127 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

that  which  Hes  Hke  clay  in  the  hands  of 
the  invisible  potter  —  to  recall  one  of 
Omar  Khayyam's  most  striking  figures 
—  but  that  which,  through  renunciation 
and  submission,  accepts  the  divine  will  in 
order  that  it  may  actively  co-operate  with 
it.  Speaking  reverently,  nothing  could 
be  more  repellent  to  God  or  man  than 
the  "  worm  of  the  dust"  attitude.  It  not 
only  degrades  man,  but  it  puts  an  affront 
upon  God.  Humility  of  spirit,  the  con- 
sciousness of  unworthiness,  and  the  sense 
of  dependence,  are  constantly  with  all 
men  who  strive  after  a  righteousness 
which  they  are  painfully  aware  is  still  far 
beyond  them  ;  but  these  are  the  signs  of 
a  nature  which  honours  rather  than  effaces 
itself.  Professions  of  absolute  unworthi- 
ness belong  only  to  those  who  have  made 
themselves  entirely  unworthy ;  they  are 
untrue  on  the  lips  of  those  who,  in  weak- 
ness and  the  consciousness  of  evil  ten- 
dencies, are  still  seeking  after  God.  For 
God  is  not  an  Oriental  sovereign  to  be 
placated  by  grovellings  in  the  dust,  by 
12S 


Not  Renunciation,  but  Co-operation 

obeisances  which  typify  slavish  fear  and 
submission  ;  he  is  a  Father  who  demands 
self-respecting  obedience  from  his  chil- 
dren. To  cringe  and  cower  before  him  is 
not  the  wholesome  attitude  of  a  son;  it 
is  the  attitude  of  a  slave ;  and  to  take  it, 
even  in  thought,  is  to  blur  the  image  of 
that  beauty  of  holiness  which  we  call  the 
divine  righteousness. 

The  will  of  God  is  not  accomplished 
in  us,  nor  are  its  fruits  borne,  by  simple 
submission ;  by  submission  we  accept 
that  will,  but  it  still  remains  to  perform 
it.  For  submission  is  passive,  and  the 
divine  will  carries  with  it  the  most  con- 
tinuous and  tireless  activity.  To  open 
the  mind  is  the  first  step  towards  acquir- 
ing any  kind  of  knowledge ;  but  the 
mere  act  of  memorizing  does  not  give  us 
the  spirit  of  any  kind  of  knowledge,  nor 
does  it  give  us  the  mastery  of  it ;  we 
must  think  about  it,  arrange  it,  fit  it  into 
the  body  of  knowledge  already  acquired, 
express  it  in  words,  and  incorporate  it  in 
some  form  of  use,  before  we  really  possess 
9  129 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

it.  We  must  not  only  accept  but  em- 
ploy it.  We  must  keep  silent  while  God 
speaks  through  any  experience,  in  order 
that  we  may  hear  what  is  spoken ;  but 
when  the  word  has  been  uttered,  we 
must  put  the  truth  into  our  lives  in  some 
kind  of  action.  When  sorrow  comes, 
we  must  bow  the  head  and  accept  the 
grief  which  keeps  company  with  it ;  but 
our  stay  by  the  open  grave  must  be 
brief;  the  lesson  taught  us  must  bear  its 
fruit  elsewhere.  When  the  stone  is 
rolled  against  the  sepulchre  in  which  our 
dearest  hope  is  laid  away  out  of  our  sight, 
our  first  duty  is  to  surrender  and  accept 
with  such  grace  of  faith  and  peace  as  God 
gives  us,  but  our  place  is  not  beside  the 
spot  where  our  dead  is  entombed ;  our 
place  is  where  men  have  need  of  the  help 
which  the  chastened  spirit,  through  its 
very  bruising,  is  best  able  to  give.  That 
divine  sympathy  which  grows  in  the 
shadow  of  a  great  sorrow  finds  its  oppor- 
tunity far  from  the  place  where  it  was 
watered  with  tears. 

130 


Not  Renunciation,  but  Co-operation 

Our  wills  are  not  ours  to  be  crushed 
and  broken  ;  they  are  ours  to  be  trained 
and  strengthened.  Our  affections  are 
not  ours  to  be  blighted  and  crucified ; 
they  are  ours  to  be  deepened  and  puri- 
fied. The  rich  opportunities  of  life  are 
not  held  out  to  us  only  to  be  snatched 
away  by  an  invisible  hand  patiently  wait- 
ing for  the  hour  when  the  cup  is  sweetest ; 
they  are  given  to  us  that  we  may  grow 
alike  through  their  use  or  their  with- 
drawal. They  are  real,  they  are  sweet, 
and  they  are  worthy  of  our  longing  fDr 
them  ;  we  gain  nothing  by  calling  them 
dross,  or  the  world  an  illusion,  or  our- 
selves the  victims  of  deception,  or  by 
exalting  renunciation  as  the  highest  virtue. 
When  these  opportunities  are  denied  us, 
it  is  a  real,  not  an  imaginary,  loss  which 
we  sustain  ;  and  our  part  is  not  that  of 
bare  renunciation,  of  simple  surrender  ; 
our  part  is  to  recognize  the  loss,  to  bear 
the  pain,  and  to  find  deeper  and  richer 
life  in  doing  the  will  of  God.  A  child 
may  rigidly  and  mechanically  accept  the 
131 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

will  of  its  father  by  blind  obedience  ;  or 
it  may  recognize  the  purpose  behind  the 
imposition  of  that  will,  and  intelligently 
and  gladly  co-operate  with  it.  The  edu- 
cational difference  between  the  influence 
of  the  two  attitudes  is  incalculable. 
Christ  accepted  the  will  of  the  Father, 
not  by  passive  renunciation,  but  by  active 
co-operation.  He  did  not,  like  so  many 
Oriental  mystics,  separate  himself  from 
his  fellows  in  order  that  he  might  reflect, 
undisturbed,  the  divine  image ;  he  bore 
that  image  in  his  own  nature  under  the 
familiar  and  sorrowful  eyes  of  men  ;  he 
wrought  out  that  will  in  word  and  deed 
and  habit,  until  his  life  became  the  will 
of  God  incarnate  among  men. 


132 


Chapter  XVIII 

The  Soul  of  Goodness 

THE  soul  of  goodness  is  love  ;  for 
it  is  out  of  love  that  goodness 
issues,  and  it  is  in  love  that  goodness 
culminates.  There  are  other  motives 
which  incite  to  goodness,  but  they  aid 
and  foster,  they  do  not  create  it.  With- 
out love  there  may  be  good  actions,  but 
there  cannot  be  goodness  ;  as  a  quality, 
goodness  must  be  rooted  in  love.  Most 
men  are  still  so  far  from  a  true  concep- 
tion of  love  that  they  suspect  it  of  certain 
inherent  possibilities  of  weakness,  and 
strive  to  steady  and  invigorate  it  by 
bringing  to  its  aid  the  ideas  of  law  and 
duty  ;  not  discerning  that  love  carries  in 
its  heart  a  law  far  more  searching  and 
inexorable  than  any  that  was  ever  graven 
on  tables  of  stone  or  written  in  statute- 
^33 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

books,  and  that  duty,  in  the  sense  of 
obligation  to  serve,  is  its  daily  life.  The 
severity  of  Christ,  the  teacher  of  love,  is 
more  terrible  than  that  of  the  sternest 
Old  Testament  lawgiver,  because  the  test 
he  applies  not  only  tries  conduct  but 
searches  motive.  The  law  is  satisfied 
when  restoration  is  made  or  the  penalty 
paid  ;  it  cannot  go  further.  But  to  love, 
which  searches  the  heart  as  with  a  lighted 
torch,  these  are  only  the  external  signs  of 
repentance ;  it  cannot  rest  short  of  a 
complete  cleansing  of  the  spirit.  With 
a  severity  born  of  a  passionate  determi- 
nation to  make  the  best  in  every  man 
supreme,  it  will  accept  nothing  less  than 
final  and  lasting  purification. 

No  quality  of  the  infinite  love  is  more 
divine  than  its  ability  to  bear  and  to  im- 
pose sufifering  ;  it  would  rather  the  loved 
one  were  slain  than  dishonoured  ;  rather 
he  were  tortured  than  stained.  In  Mr. 
Watts's  beautiful  picture  love  is  leading 
life  up  the  steep  pathway,  over  the  stones 
that  bruise  and  pierce,  with  infinite  gen- 
134 


The  Soul  of  Goodness 

tleness  but  with  inexorable  purpose. 
For  love  can  lead  where  law  cannot  drive, 
and  love  can  win  where  law  is  powerless 
to  force  obedience.  For  love  has  re- 
sources with  which  law  is  not  armed ;  it 
has  the  fellowship  of  burden-bearing  and 
suffering.  It  asks  no  one  to  go  where  it 
is  not  ready  to  go  itself.  By  its  very 
nature  it  takes  in  the  experience  of  one 
whom  it  strives  to  reclaim  or  correct,  and 
in  the  anguish  of  the  repentance  which  it 
compels  it  often  sweats  great  drops  of 
blood.  Law  declares  the  guilt  of  the 
world  and  imposes  its  penalty ;  love 
carries  the  consciousness  of  that  guilt 
home  to  the  deepest  nature,  compels  not 
only  the  forsaking  of  the  sin,  but  the  re- 
birth, with  all  its  pangs,  of  the  soul  of 
the  sinner,  and  walks  step  by  step  through 
the  humiliation  and  bitterness  of  repen- 
tance, restitution,  and  recovery.  It 
shares  the  shame  and  anguish  long  after 
the  law  has  run  its  course  and  is  satisfied. 
It  compels  the  guilty  to  confess  and  re- 
store with  an  inexorableness  more  terrible 
135 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

than  that  of  law  itself;  but  it  does  not 
leave  the  offender  in  the  dark  ;  it  goes  to 
prison  with  him,  wears  the  garb  and  does 
the  work  of  punishment  with  him ;  and 
when  he  has  cleansed  himself,  welcomes 
him  back  to  life  and  duty  when  all  faces 
are  turned  away. 

There  is  nothing  so  terrible  as  the  in- 
sistence of  love  on  perfect  righteousness. 
It  cannot  compromise  ;  it  is  powerless  to 
accept  anything  less,  because  it  has  a 
consuming  desire  to  bring  out  the  final 
touch  of  nobleness  in  the  soul  it  loves. 
They  have  not  known  the  divinest  secret 
of  love  who  have  not  suffered  from  its 
inflexible  idealism,  its  inexorable  deter- 
mination to  get  the  best  and  the  most  out 
of  the  loved  one.  Many  a  husband  has 
rebelled  in  feeling  against  his  wife's  faith- 
ful loyalty  to  his  own  noblest  nature,  and 
has  come  at  last,  in  the  clearer  vision  of 
his  own  growth,  to  reverence  that  insis- 
tence upon  the  best  in  aim,  conduct,  and 
habit  as  the  very  highest  form  of  tender- 
ness. It  is  not  easy  to  live  under  the 
136 


The  Soul  of  Goodness 

same  roof  with  the  ideal  of  what  one 
ought  to  be  and  to  do  ;  but  there  comes 
a  time,  in  such  companionship,  when  the 
very  roof  is  sacred  because  it  has  sheltered 
it.  One  must  be  good  indeed  before  he 
can  live  at  ease  with  a  great  love.  For 
this  reason  Calvary  is  more  awful  than 
Sinai,  and  the  patient  sufferings  of  Christ 
more  appalling  than  all  the  thunderings 
of  the  lawgivers.  For  love  is  not  only 
all  tenderness,  forgiveness,  and  service  ; 
it  is  also  all  severity,  sanity,  duty,  right- 
eousness. It  is  far  stronger  and  safer  than 
law,  because  it  is  far  more  searching  and 
inexorable. 


m 


Chapter  XIX 

Retreats  for  the  Spirit 

"AS  often  as  you  can  in  the  course 
Xx.  of  the  day,  recall  your  spirit 
into  the  presence  of  God,"  writes  St. 
Francis  of  Sales  in  his  meditations  on 
the  Devout  Life.  In  the  noise  and  con- 
fusion of  the  visible,  one  needs  constant- 
ly to  take  refuge  in  the  invisible.  We 
are  always  in  the  presence  of  God ;  to 
find  that  presence  we  do  not  need  to 
seek  the  silence  of  the  desert  or  the 
monastery  ;  we  need  only  to  remember 
that  we  are  in  His  presence  and  to  recall 
our  spirits  to  the  consciousness  that 
wherever  we  are,  there  is  God  also.  To 
give  his  deep  counsel  greater  definite- 
ness,  the  great  Bishop  of  Genoa  adds 
these  striking  words  :  "  Remember,  then, 
to  make  occasional  retreats  into  the  soli- 
138 


Retreats  for  the  Spirit 

tude  of  your  heart,  whilst  outwardly 
engaged  in  business  or  conversation. 
This  mental  solitude  cannot  be  pre- 
vented by  the  multitude  of  those  who 
are  about  you,  for  they  are  not  about 
your  heart,  but  about  your  body ;  so 
your  heart  may  remain  above,  in  the 
presence  of  God  alone."  This  was  the 
refuge  of  David  under  the  burdens  of 
the  State ;  and  in  this  habit  lies  the 
secret  of  that  richness  of  expression  of 
the  spiritual  life  which  makes  the  Book 
of  Psalms  one  of  the  text-books  of  the 
religious  life.  "  O  Lord,"  cries  the 
King,  "  as  for  me,  I  am  always  with 
Thee.  I  have  set  God  always  before 
me.  Unto  Thee  lift  I  up  mine  eyes,  O 
Thou  that  dwellest  in  the  heavens.  My 
eyes  are  ever  looking  unto  the  Lord." 

When  St.  Catherine  of  Siena,  the  good 
Bishop  adds  by  way  of  illustration,  was 
deprived  by  her  parents  of  every  oppor- 
tunity for  prayer  and  meditation,  she 
made  "  a  little  interior  oratory  within 
her  own  soul,"  in  which  she  found,  at 
139 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

all  times,  the  solitude  of  the  heart  which 
she  craved.  Persecution  could  not  harm 
her.  "You  may  kill  us,"  wrote  a  great 
Christian  to  a  Roman  Emperor,  "  but 
you  cannot  hurt  us."  The  noise  and 
tumult  of  the  world  could  not  confuse 
her;  she  was  in  it,  but  she  was  not  of 
it.  She  needed  neither  stated  time  of 
worship  nor  consecrated  place  to  kneel  in  ; 
her  own  heart  had  become  a  sanctuary, 
and  her  own  soul  a  retreat.  She  was 
impregnable  in  the  fastness  of  her 
spirit. 

It  is  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  that 
such  retreats  from  the  noise  of  the  world 
are  no  longer  necessary,  that  they  are 
characteristic  of  a  religious  experience 
which  the  race  has  left  behind  in  its 
swift  movement  forward.  The  modern 
world  looks  back  with  a  kind  of  self- 
conscious  complacency  on  the  medieval 
world,  and  thanks  God  in  a  very  audible 
voice  that  it  is  no  longer  what  it  was 
five  centuries  ago.  The  progress  has 
been  great,  and  nowhere  greater  than  in 
140 


Retreats  for  the  Spirit 

the  freedom  and  breadth  of  the  religious 
life  as  men  now  understand  it ;  but  there 
have  been  losses  as  well  as  gains,  and 
one  of  these  losses  is  the  apparent  dis- 
appearance from  the  consciousness  of  a 
multitude  of  religious  people  of  the  need 
of  silence  and  solitude  in  order  that  the 
presence  of  God  may  be  felt.  It  is  a 
noble  manifestation  of  the  Christian 
spirit  which  makes  so  many  modern 
men  impatient  of  any  kind  of  religious 
confession  which  is  not  evidenced  and 
confirmed  by  immediate  and  *  ardent 
service.  Never  before  in  the  history 
of  the  race  has  religion  been  so  swiftly 
and  nobly  translated  into  human  help- 
fulness ;  and  men  are  everywhere  show- 
ing their  love  for  the  invisible  God  by 
the  love  they  bear  for  their  brethren. 

In  this  modern  emphasis  upon  ac- 
tivity and  helpfulness  there  is  danger, 
however,  that  the  springs  of  spiritual 
power  may  lose  in  depth  and  capacity. 
If  an  immense  surface  of  hitherto  arid 
territory  is  to  be  irrigated  and  its  desola- 
141 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

tion  turned  into  fruitfulness,  the  foun- 
tains themselves  must  be  deepened. 
The  impulse  must  gather  force  with  the 
increased  volume  of  activity.  And  so 
it  comes  about  that  to-day  men  need  to 
realize  more  keenly  than  before  that  they 
are  not  only  in  the  presence  of  their 
fellows,  but  that  they  are  also  in  the 
presence  of  God.  There  is  sore  need 
of  a  revival  of  the  mediaeval  conscious- 
ness not  only  of  dependence  upon  God, 
but  of  dependence  on  meditation,  prayer, 
and  solitude  of  the  spirit.  The  man 
who  speaks  often  without  constant  and 
arduous  preparation  runs  shallow  in 
thought  and  becomes  commonplace  in 
expression ;  the  man  who  writes  without 
tireless  preparation  of  mind  and  spirit 
through  reading,  observation,  and  medi- 
tation, loses  freshness,  originality,  and 
force  and  becomes  a  mere  maker  of  sen- 
tences ;  in  like  manner  the  religious  man 
whose  whole  force  goes  out  in  practical 
work,  without  constant  inward  devout- 
ness  and  seeking  of  God,  becomes  a 
142 


Retreats  for  the  Spirit 

religious  mechanician  and  ceases  to   be  a 
source  of  inspiration  and  power. 

Activity  is  the  manifestation  of  life, 
but  it  is  not  life.  Life  bears  the  fruit  of 
service  and  helpfulness,  but  it  is  neither 
visible  nor  audible  ;  it  is  hidden  in  that 
mystery  which  not  only  veils  the  throne 
of  God  but  enfolds  everything  else  that 
is  divine  among  men.  To  find  that  life 
one  must  withdraw  from  the  visible  into 
the  invisible  ;  one  must  pass  from  the 
presence  of  man  into  the  presence  of 
God.  And  St.  Catherine  found  and 
foreshadowed  the  way  of  the  modern 
man  when  she  made  "  a  little  interior 
oratory  within  her  soul."  Into  these 
invisible  places  of  meditation  and  wor- 
ship one  may  go  from  the  noise  of  the 
world  as  really  as  one  steps  from  the 
tumult  of  the  street  into  the  vast  silence 
of  a  cathedral ;  but  one  does  not  need  to 
seek  them  afar  ;  their  noiseless  doors  are 
always  within  touch  of  the  hand  that 
feels  for  them. 


143 


Chapter  XX 

Sacrifice 

THAT  the  glory  of  victory  is  never 
without  its  deep  shadow  of  sacri- 
fice we  have  been  learning  again  in  recent 
days  of  mingled  exultation  and  anxiety. 
At  the  end  of  the  glowing  account  of  the 
brilliant  achievement  comes  the  list  of  the 
killed  and  wounded  ;  and  while  the  coun- 
try rejoices  in  its  gains,  a  hundred  or  a 
thousand  homes  are  overshadowed  by 
their  losses.  The  old  familiar  story  of 
sacrifice  is  told  again  in  the  new  deeds 
and  sufferings  of  new  men,  bravely  mak- 
ing ready  for  new  times  :  the  story  which 
every  generation  has  learned  by  heart. 
For  since  time  began  —  time  being  taken 
as  the  human  record  of  eternity  —  men 
have  been  called  upon  to  surrender  the 
most  precious  things  in  exchange  for 
144 


Sacrifice 

their  material  and  spiritual  gains.  Noth- 
ing great  has  been  obtained  without  the 
payment  of  a  great  price.  The  common 
safety,  the  general  comfort,  the  habits 
and  customs  of  peaceful  society,  the 
development  of  trade,  agriculture,  com- 
merce, art,  civilization,  have  not  been 
accomplished  save  through  great  sorrows 
and  sacrifices.  The  long,  slow  emergence 
of  men  from  barbarism  has  been  marked, 
stage  by  stage,  with  anguish  and  the 
shedding  of  blood.  All  high  and  beauti- 
ful gifts,  graces,  and  achievements  have 
flowered  on  the  stem  of  pain.  If  the 
Hebrew  race  had  not  pierced  its  heart 
with  the  terrible  griefs  of  life,  the  Psalms 
would  not  have  been  written  ;  if  Dante 
had  not  walked  the  solitary  path  of  exile 
and  climbed  the  lonely  stairs,  there  would 
have  been  no  Divine  Comedy ;  if  the 
great  passions  had  not  sown  and  reaped 
their  bitter  harvest,  there  would  have 
been  no  "  Hamlet,"  "  Macbeth,"  or 
"  Lear."  The  sorrow  of  the  world  has 
given  poetry  its  most  moving  notes  and 

lo  145 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

music  its  most  thrilling  tones.  In  trial 
and  bitterness  the  foundations  of  States 
have  been  laid ;  through  surrender  and 
loss  communities  have  taken  the  leader- 
ship of  civilization ;  and  these  precious 
fruits  of  self-denial  and  self-surrender 
have  been  preserved  only  by  fresh 
sacrifices. 

When  one  turns  away  from  the  move- 
ments of  men  in  masses  and  the  gains  of 
humanity  as  a  whole,  and  searches  the 
secret  stories  of  individual  lives,  the  same 
record  of  sacrifice  comes  to  light.  No 
man  has  ever  gained  anything  real  with- 
out giving  a  part  of  himself  in  payment 
for  his  achievement.  Behind  every 
genuine  work  of  skill  or  art  or  mercy 
there  is  a  hidden  history  of  surrender  of 
the  things  that  men  value  —  time,  ease, 
leisure,  rest,  pleasure.  That  slow  and 
invisible  accumulation  of  moral  intelli- 
gence and  power  which  we  call  character 
is  made  by  those  alone  who  have  counted 
all  lesser  gains  cheap  in  comparison  with 
that  final  wealth  which  enriches  the  soul, 
146 


Sacrifice 

and  grows,  not  by  saving,  but  b)^  spend- 
ing ;  and  those  great  heights  of  spiritual 
achievement  upon  which,  in  every  gen- 
eration, a  few  men  and  women  walk  with 
God  are  gained  only  by  the  path  of 
sorrow  and  surrender.  No  man  ever 
secures  that  clearness  of  vision  with  which 
St.  Paul  and  St.  John  looked  into  the 
divine  mysteries  without  first  looking 
into  the  heart  of  great  griefs  and  bearing 
patiently  the  weight  of  the  supreme 
sorrows.  It  is  written  in  the  structure  of 
the  soul  that  no  man  can  attain  the  higher 
skills,  or  master  the  higher  wisdom,  or 
live  the  divinest  life  until  he  has  made 
acquaintance  with  grief. 

From  the  beginning  men  have  felt, 
even  when  they  have  not  comprehended, 
the  necessity  of  sacrifice.  They  have 
misunderstood  and  distorted  its  signifi- 
cance ;  they  have  even  reversed  its  mean- 
ing and  interpreted  it  as  an  arbitrary 
requirement  of  God,  who  exacted  from 
his  creatures  that  which  he  was  not  wil- 
ling to  do  for  them  ;  they  have  stained 
U7 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

countless  altars  with  blood,  and  painfully 
elaborated  systems  of  thought  to  make 
the  reversal  of  the  divine  fact  of  sacrifice 
comprehensible  and  credible.  But  in 
ritual  and  creed  religion  has  instinctively 
fastened  upon  this  great  idea  as  central 
and  fundamental  in  the  relations  of  the 
human  with  the  divine,  and  silently,  in 
every  age,  sacrifice  has  shown  its  true 
nature.  A  few  spirits  in  every  time  have 
discerned  that  it  is  not  an  arbitrary  re- 
quirement, but  the  very  heart  of  that 
divine  process  of  growth  which  we  call 
life ;  the  beautiful  and  constant  witness  of 
the  divine  sonship  of  the  race.  And  in 
the  fullness  of  time  God  appeared  among 
men  in  a  human  form ;  not  as  supreme 
and  sovereign,  with  angels  about  him, 
and  nature  breaking  into  songs  of  recog- 
nition, and  men  reverent  and  obedient 
and  worshipful ;  but  acquainted  with  grief 
rejected,  bruised,  smitten,  and  crucified  : 
the  sublime  revelation,  which  could  never 
have  issued  from  the  mind  of  man,  of  a 
suffering  God,  redeeming  the  race,  not 
148 


Sacrifice 

from  his  own  wrath,  but  from  its  sins,  by 
the  eternal  sacrifice. 

Into  this  mystery  of  sacrifice,  which 
half-savage  men  have  not  wholly  missed, 
the  wisest  man  searches  with  the  certainty 
that,  though  he  cannot  in  this  mortal  life 
fathom  it,  he  cannot  entirely  lose  its 
meaning  in  the  order  of  experience.  In 
the  hour  when  his  soul  cries  out  in  the 
anguish  of  sudden  loss,  of  the  breaking  of 
ties  which  are  dearer  than  life,  of  those 
great  surrenders  which  for  the  moment 
seem  to  be  the  giving  up  of  life  itself,  he 
is  not  unaware  of  the  liberation  of  spirit, 
which  is  being  accomplished  in  him 
almost  against  his  will.  The  pains  of 
growth  may  make  him  unmindful  of  the 
growth  which  is  taking  place ;  but  when 
the  poignancy  of  grief  is  past  and  the 
first  agony  of  surrender  over,  there  is  a 
new  wisdom  in  his  soul  and  a  new 
strength  in  his  will.  In  a  world  of  con- 
fused standards,  imperfect  vision,  and  of 
relative  values  we  are  taught,  through 
suffering,  the  scale  of  absolute  values. 
149 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

The  price  we  pay  for  the  highest  things 
makes  their  importance  clear  to  us ;  and 
when  we  have  once  learned  that  lesson  we 
have  gone  a  long  way  toward  learning  the 
deepest  lesson  of  life.  He  who  has  gained 
character  at  the  expense  of  ease  and  leis- 
ure and  pleasure  is  never  again  confused 
by  the  charms  or  delights  or  solicitations 
of  these  lesser  things.  As  they  recede 
from  him  he  knows  that  they  are  subor- 
dinate to  the  gains  he  has  put  in  their 
place ;  and  even  in  those  moments  of 
spiritual  relaxation  which  come  to  strong 
men,  though  he  may  recall  them  with  a 
momentary  regret,  he  would  not  go  back 
to  them.  He  has  grown  beyond  their 
ability  to  sustain  or  satisfy  him. 


150 


/•7_-       --?-     ^ 


Chapter  XXI 

The  Pain  of  Limitation 

TO  live  cheerfully  with  ourselves  is 
among  the  most  difficult  tusks 
which  life  lays  upon  us.  When  one 
thinks  of  it,  there  is  something  appalling 
in  the  necessity  of  spending  all  one's  time 
for  fifty,  seventy,  or  more  years  with  the 
same  person.  This  inevitable  companion- 
ship with  ourselves,  this  necessity  of  see- 
ing always  with  the  same  eyes,  thinking 
with  the  same  brain,  doing  work  with  the 
same  faculties,  passing  through  all  man- 
ner of  experience  with  the  same  tempera- 
ment, makes  life  one  long,  monotonous 
imprisonment  unless  every  resource  for 
enlargement  and  enrichment  is  used.  Pt 
is  this  blighting  monotony  rather  than 
"the  slings  and  arrows  of  outrageous 
fortune"  which  drives  some  men /and 
'         '5. 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

women  to  the  mad  folly  of  suicide  — 
that  futile  effort  to  break  away  from  self 
instead  of  emancipating  self.  For  monot- 
ony is  far  more  difficult  to  bear  than 
misfortune ;  as  the  fury  and  perils  of  the 
storm  are  easier  to  endure  than  long, 
weary  weeks  of  dull  grey  weather.  The 
changes  and  the  dangers  of  the  tempest 
may  terrify  us  at  times,  but  they  take  us 
out  of  ourselves,  they  make  us  forget 
ourselves,  they  fasten  our  thoughts  on 
the  movement  of  the  world  about  us.  To 
mix  with  action,  to  feel  the  stir  of  the 
world,  to  be  in  the  vortex  of  change,  in- 
volves great  and  inevitable  risks ;  but 
life  itself  is  a  constant  risk. 

It  is  not  risk  which  depresses  and  par- 
alyzes men  ;  it  is  monotonous  inactivity. 
Men  do  not  put  pistols  to  their  heads 
when  the  battle  is  on,  and  every  post  is 
a  place  of  peril ;  they  succumb  to  despair 
when  dull  day  succeeds  dull  day  in  de- 
pressing succession.  It  is  monotony 
which  eats  the  heart  out  of  joy,  destroys 
the  buoyancy  of  the  spirit,  and  turns  hope 
152 


The  Pain  of  Limitation 

to  ashes ;  it  is  monotony  which  saps  the 
vitality  of  the  emotions,  depletes  the 
energy  of  the  will,  and  finally  turns 
the  miracle  of  daily  existence  into  dreary 
commonplace.  And  monotony  has  its 
roots,  not  in  our  conditions,  but  in  our- 
selves. In  the  same  conditions  one  man 
will  find  constant  interest  and  another 
persistent  dullness;  one  man  will  be 
awakened  and  stimulated,  and  another 
stupefied  and  deadened.  There  are,  of 
course,  circumstances  which  prey  upon 
the  stoutest  hearts  and  chill  the  most 
ardent  spirits  ;  but  men  are  rarely  placed 
in  environments  which  cannot  be  modi- 
fied by  the  energy  of  the  spirit.  The 
prison  which  condemns  some  men  to  de- 
spair gives  others  time  and  quiet  for 
meditation.  Raleigh  found  the  Tower  a 
convenient  place  in  which  to  write  the 
"  History  of  the  World,"  and  Silvio 
Pellico  turned  his  duress  into  an  oppor- 
tunity of  winning  fame.  Most  men  are 
crushed  by  invalidism,  but  John  Adding- 
ton  Symonds  transformed  his  enforced 
153 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

residence  In  the  high  Alps  into  one  pro- 
longed period  of  fruitful  work.  It  is 
difficult  to  believe  that  he  could  have 
done  more  if  he  had  spent  those  toilsome 
years  in  the  beautiful  restful ness  of  Ox- 
ford. The  hand  of  doom  rested  early 
upon  Robert  Louis  Stevenson ;  but  he 
became  one  of  the  great  adventurers 
of  the  time,  and  turned  his  quest  for 
health  into  a  quest  for  that  large  experi- 
ence which  makes  its  possessor  a  master 
of  life.  Conditions  have  much  to  do 
with  success,  but  they  are  not  its  deter- 
mining factors  ;  in  the  last  analysis  we 
are  the  m.akers  or  losers  of  our  fortunes ; 
and  life  is  interesting  or  monotonous  as  we 
ourselves  are  interesting  or  monotonous. 
The  art  of  living  with  ourselves  is, 
therefore,  something  to  be  studied  with 
persistent  energy  and  intelligence ;  for 
through  its  mastery  we  attain  freedom 
and  happiness.  And  one  of  the  most 
difficult  lessons  which  are  involved  in 
learning  this  art  is  cordial  acceptance  of 
our  own  limitations.  It  is  the  wall  which 
154 


The  Pain  of  Limitation 

these  limitations  build  about  us  which 
imprisons  and  suffocates  us.  It  is  true, 
not  all  men  are  conscious  of  that  wall. 
The  sincere  man  or  woman  is  free  from 
conceit,  for  conceit  always  involves  a 
certain  lack  of  downright  honesty  with 
ourselves,  which  makes  us  blind  to  our 
limitations.  To  feel  keenly  the  pressure 
of  our  limitations  we  must  be  thoroughly 
honest  with  ourselves ;  and  one  of  the 
compensations  for  the  consciousness  of 
our  narrow  range  of  thought  and  pro- 
ductiveness is  the  consciousness  that  he 
who  clearly  recognizes  his  own  defect 
has  taken  the  first  step  towards  removing 
that  defect.  To  have  a  keen  sense  of 
limitation  is  to  see  clearly  and  to  deal 
honestly  with  one's  self;  and  clear  vision 
and  integrity  are  noble  foundations  upon 
which  to  build  for  a  larger  growth.  The 
egotist  often  finds  life  comfortable,  but 
he  never  finds  it  noble ;  the  conceited 
man  often  enjoys  himself,  but  he  never 
makes  self  a  synonym  for  spiritual  com- 
pass and  power.  It  makes  living  easy 
155 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

to  be  without  consciousness  of  limita- 
tions, but  it  makes  it  spiritually  stagnant 
and  intellectually  ignoble.  Moreover, 
men  never  at  heart  respect  the  egotist, 
and  they  never  take  the  conceited  man 
at  his  own  valuation. 

To  the  most  sincere  and  courageous 
there  will  come  moments  of  depression 
and  discouragement,  times  of  weariness 
and  exhaustion.  In  such  moments  our 
limitations,  the  sameness  of  our  methods, 
the  repetition  of  our  phrases,  the  recur- 
rence of  certain  dominant  ideas,  the  ina- 
bility to  get  away  from  what  seems  to  be 
a  stationary  point  of  view,  are  so  hard  to 
endure  that  we  are  forced  to  decisive 
dealing  with  them  ;  either  we  must  suc- 
cumb to  the  despair  which  envelops  us 
like  a  cloud,  or  we  must  resolutely  trans- 
form a  painful  experience  into  a  source 
of  strength  and  growth.  A  man  is  often 
haunted  with  the  feeling  that  if  he  could 
break  through  the  thin  film  which  seems 
to  separate  him  from  masterful  knovv^l- 
edge  of  the  great  realities  and  forces,  he 
156 


The  Pain  of  Limitation 

could  achieve  a  success  that  would  satisfy 
him,  instead  of  having  to  be  content  with 
the  success  which  satisfies  others.  In 
our  highest  moments  we  seem  to  be  on 
the  point  of  stepping  across  the  invisible 
line  of  limitation  which  moves  with  us 
like  a  shifting  horizon ;  but  when  the 
inspiration  ebbs,  the  old  lines  grow  pain- 
fully distinct.  There  is  in  strong  men 
a  deep  craving  for  that  final  freedom 
which  can  come  only  with  complete 
mastery  of  every  kind  of  expression. 
The  greatest  artist  knows  not  only  the 
sharp  limitations  of  his  skill,  but  of  his 
art.  Let  a  man  command  every  resource 
of  his  art,  and  he  finds  himself  face  to 
face  with  another  set  of  limitations  ;  he 
needs  other  arts  in  order  to  give  his  per- 
sonality complete  play  and  final  expres- 
sion. And  if  one  could  touch  all  the 
arts  with  the  hand  of  a  master,  there 
would  still  be  a  pathetic  disparity  between 
the  fathomless  longings  and  capacities  of 
the  soul  and  all  forms  of  human  expres- 
sion. 

157 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

The  pain  of  limitation  is  not,  there- 
fore, the  peculiar  experience  of  those 
whose  native  gifts  are  not  of  the  highest 
order  and  whose  chances  of  culture  have 
been  rare  and  transient ;  it  is  the  com- 
mon trial  of  all  who  know  themselves 
and  are  honest  with  themselves.  Its 
root  is  not  in  permanence  of  imperfection, 
narrowness  of  range,  and  lasting  rigidity 
of  faculty ;  it  is  rather  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  great  power  inadequately  de- 
veloped, of  superabundant  energy  not 
fully  put  forth.  It  is  the  pain  of  an  im- 
mortal nature  confined  for  a  time  within 
the  narrow  boundaries  of  mortal  condi- 
tions. If  a  personality  could  be  entirely 
unfolded  in  this  mortal  life,  immortality 
would  lose  its  noblest  quality  and  its 
divinest  hope.  In  the  journey  of  life 
the  eager  feet  of  the  traveller  never  reach 
the  final  summit ;  there  are  always  higher 
peaks  beyond.  No  faculty  ever  attains 
the  last  stage  of  growth;  no  talent  ever 
bears  its  perfect  fruit  in  performance  ;  no 
soul  ever  touches  the  ultimate  goal. 
158 


The  Pain  of  Limitation 

Time  is  not  long  enough  nor  is  this 
mortal  life  large  enough  to  make  room 
for  the  perfect  unfolding  of  a  soul.  In 
the  pain  of  conscious  limitation  lies  the 
prophecy  of  continuous  growth,  the  hope 
of  that  consummation  for  which  all  aspi- 
ration and  sacrifice  and  endeavor  are  a 
divinely  ordered  preparation. 


159 


Chapter  XXII 

The  Way  of  Work 

IT  is  natural  to  revolt  against  the  ne- 
cessity of  work ;  for  work  often 
seems  to  stand  between  a  man  and  his 
highest  development.  If  it  were  not  for 
the  necessity  of  being  at  certain  places 
and  doing  prescribed  tasks  at  fixed  times, 
we  are  tempted  to  believe,  we  should  find 
the  life  of  the  spirit  more  simple,  more 
consistent,  and  more  joyous.  For  work, 
at  first  glance,  seems  to  be  an  interrup- 
tion of  the  richest  living ;  it  compels  us 
to  fix  our  thoughts  on  materials  and 
tools ;  it  wearies  the  mind  to  such  a  de- 
gree that  its  freshness  for  spiritual  things 
is  largely  spent ;  it  forces  us  into  close 
association  with  our  fellows.  In  the  first 
stages  of  spiritual  development,  before  we 
have  learned  the  greatest  and  most  diffi- 
i6o 


The  Way  of  Work 

cult  of  all  the  lessons  set  for  the  spirit  of 
man  in  this  world,  we  dream  of  the  joys 
of  a  life  detached  from  toil  and  time  and 
men,  and  given  up  wholly  to  thoughts  of 
God.  If  it  were  not  for  the  coil  of  duties 
and  tasks  which  necessity  binds  about  us, 
we  imagine  we  should  run  the  race  set 
before  us  with  shining  faces  and  eager 
feet.  There  would  be  no  clouds  to  ob- 
scure the  radiant  day  ;  no  weariness  of 
spirit  and  body  ;  no  loss  of  freshness 
of  feeling  for  the  things  which  make  for 
our  peace. 

If  God  would  permit  us  to  come  to 
him  by  some  straight  path  and  not  by  all 
these  devious  ways  !  If  he  would  shine 
full  upon  our  souls,  instead  of  obscuring 
the  light  of  his  countenance  by  intercept- 
ing mists  !  So  men  have  thought;  and 
have  tried  to  make  the  order  of  their 
going  to  God  accord  with  their  thought. 
They  have  gone  out  of  the  working 
world  ;  they  have  denied  its  claims  upon 
their  time  and  strength,  loosened  the  ties 
that  bound  them  to  it,  cast  off  their  dear- 
II  i6i 


.    Life  of  the  Spirit 

est  associations,  and  given  themselves  up, 
in  silence  and  solitude,  to  unbroken  med- 
itation upon  God.  To  some  bruised  and 
weary  spirits  peace  has  come  with  seclu- 
sion ;  but  to  the  sound,  strong,  and 
normal  human  spirit  such  efforts  to  get 
outside  the  order  of  man's  life  in  this 
world  have  disastrously  failed.  He  who 
cannot  find  God  in  the  labors  and  stir  of 
the  world  cannot  find  him  in  the  solitude 
of  deserts  or  the  quietness  of  monasteries. 
Work  cannot  be  evaded  without  serious 
spiritual  loss ;  for  work  is  the  most 
general  and  the  most  searching  method 
of  education  to  which  men  are  subject. 
A  process  which  is  educational  in  a  way 
at  once  so  deep  and  rich  must,  in  the 
nature  of  things,  form  part  of  the  spirit- 
ual order  of  life  ;  for  education  is  always 
spiritual  in  its  results.  Christ's  life 
among  men  was  one  of  toil  ;  he  was  bred 
to  a  trade,  and  practised  it ;  his  labors 
were  manifold  and  continuous  ;  and  in 
word,  deed,  and  habit  he  identified  him- 
self with  those  who  work.  Many  of  his 
162 


The  Way  of  Work 

most  beautiful  parables  grew  out  of  his 
familiarity  with  the  tasks  of  the  shepherd 
and  husbandman  ;  many  of  the  deepest 
truths  he  gave  to  his  disciples  were  made 
real  and  comprehensible  by  the  imagery 
of  the  working  life  in  the  fields  and  at 
home ;  and  when  he  said,  "  My  Father 
worketh  hitherto,  and  I  work,"  he  not 
only  gave  a  divine  sanction  to  work,  but^ 
he  made  it  a  part  of  the  divine  life.  The 
revelation  of  a  working  God  brought  a 
new  conception  of  the  divine  nature  into 
human  thought ;  a  conception  which  is 
beginning  to  make  its  profound  signifi- 
cance clear  and  victorious.  A  God  at 
work  carries  with  it  the  conception  of  a 
God  who  is  identified  with  that  vast 
movement  of  life  in  nature  and  in  society 
of  which  man  is  part.  The  thought  of 
God  at  work  sheds  a  marvellous  light  on 
nature  and  on  life  ;  it  makes  history  a 
continuous  revelation  of  God's  will  and 
purpose  ;  it  identifies  all  the  great  forces 
which  sustain  the  universe  with  the  power 
that  streams  from  him  ;  it  invests  the 
163 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

whole  movement  of  life  with  the  beauty 
and  dignity  of  a  divine  presence  and  a 
divine  order. 

It  is  not  many  years  since  men  con- 
ceived of  the  physical  universe  as  the 
fixed  and  completed  product  of  a  creative 
power  put  forth  in  some  remote  past,  and 
of  history  as  a  record  which  had  once 
been  inspired,  but  from  which  the  radiance 
had  faded.  God  had  finished  the  mak- 
ing of  the  world  and  withdrawn  himself; 
he  had  completed  the  disclosure  of  his 
nature  to  Abraham,  David,  and  Isaiah, 
and  had  ceased  to  speak  to  men  ;  he  had 
guided  Moses  in  such  a  way  that  men 
could  follow  the  signs  of  his  presence, 
but  he  had  left  Washington  and  Lincoln 
to  find  a  path  through  the  waste  and 
storm  as  best  they  could. 

When  Christ  declared  that  his  Father 
worked,  and  that  he  worked,  he  destroyed 
this  false  conception  root  and  branch,  and 
flooded  the  world  with  the  presence  and 
power  of  the  Infinite.  For  work  involves 
the  idea  of  incompleteness  ;  when  a  thing 
164 


The  Way  of  Work 

is  finished,  there  is  an  end  of  work  upon 
it.  A  working  God  means  an  incomplete 
and  growing  world ;  an  order  of  things 
which  has  not  reached  its  perfection,  but 
is  still  moving  on  to  ends  not  yet  attained. 
And  this  suggests  the  deeper  meaning  of 
the  great  process  which  we  call  work.  It 
is  not,  as  we  are  tempted  to  believe,  a 
mere  putting  forth  of  strength,  in  order 
that  certain  external  ends  may  be  accom- 
plished, and  certain  visible  products  of 
skill  and  toil  brought  into  being ;  it  is 
the  expression  and  passion  of  a  full,  deep, 
rich  life.  It  does  not  consist  in  dealing 
with  materials  and  in  making  specific 
things  ;  it  binds  a  man  to  his  fellows, 
sets  him  in  the  spiritual  order  of  society, 
teaches  him  all  those  lessons  which  are 
primary  in  the  experience  of  the  race 
because  they  are  necessary  to  the  safety 
and  sanity  of  the  race  —  temperance,  in- 
dustry, honesty,  truthfulness,  patience  ; 
provides  him  with  the  forms  of  activity 
which  develop  his  nature  and  appease  his 
craving  for  expression ;  and  puts  him  in 
165 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

the  way  of  bringing  the  full  force  of  his 
personality  to  bear  on  the  world  and  his 
fellows. 

The  religious  life  not  only  has  its  temp- 
tations, but  those  temptations  are  pecu- 
liarly insidious  and  subtle.  The  story 
of  the  anchorite  is  often  a  story  of  un- 
usual solicitation  to  some  form  of  evil. 
To  get  away  from  the  interruption  of 
work  is  not,  alas  !  to  follow  Christ  with 
swift  and  victorious  feet ;  it  is  to  invite 
the  approach  of  the  most  serious  spiritual 
perils.  The  desire  to  get  beyond  the 
reach  of  the  calls  which  life  makes  upon 
men,  in  order  that  one  may  hear  only  the 
voice  of  God,  often  has  its  root  in  sel- 
fishness ;  for  one  may  even  long  for  fel- 
lowship with  God  for  selfish  reasons.  To 
long  to  be  with  God  because  one  is  tired 
of  being  in  the  world,  revolts  against  its 
demands,  and  resents  its  intrusion  of  its 
own  claims,  is  a  much  lower  motive  than 
the  passion  for  companionship  with  the 
one  perfect  realization  of  holiness  and 
righteousness.  One  may  long  for  God 
i66 


The  Way  of  Work 

for  the  satisfaction  of  his  own  soul,  or 
one  may  long  for  God  because  he  longs 
to  yield  himself  utterly  and  finally  to  the 
will  of  the  Infinite;  and  between  these 
two  kinds  of  longing  there  is  a  vast  reach 
of  spiritual  development. 

The  way  of  work  is  the  way  of  discip- 
line, training,  education,  and  growth.  If 
one  could  seek  God  as  one  finds  a  friend, 
by  passing  through  a  single  door,  one 
would  not  know  him  even  in  his  pres- 
ence ;  for  to  know  God  one  must  first 
learn  many  things.  The  world  has  al- 
ways been  full  of  men  and  women  before 
whose  eyes  God  was  daily  passing,  but 
they  did  not  see  him  ;  Christ  came,  lived, 
spoke,  and  died  among  men,  and  even 
his  own  received  him  not.  Going  to 
God  is  not  traversing  a  certain  distance 
in  space ;  it  is  accomplishing  a  certain 
growth  of  the  spirit.  For  God  is  never 
far  to  seek,  though  so  many  fail  to  find 
him. 


167 


Ijf    ^  I 


Chapter  XXIII 

Love  of  Country 

PATRIOTISM  has  been  a  passion 
with  the  finest  spirits  in  every 
age.  No  sacrifice  has  been  too  great  if 
the  country  asked  it ;  no  task  too  heavy, 
no  duty  too  dangerous.  In  all  times 
and  among  every  people  there  have  been 
base  spirits  who  were  more  ready  to 
make  their  country  serve  them  than  to 
serve  it ;  who  were  eager  to  turn  every 
great  crisis  to  their  personal  advantage, 
and  to  make  public  necessity  an  occasion 
of  private  gain.  It  has  been  said  that 
during  the  Civil  War  the  Government 
of  the  United  States  paid  four  dollars 
for  every  dollar's  worth  of  material  or 
service  which  it  used  or  received ;  and 
there  are  always  many  who  treat  a 
great  National  experience  as  a  great 
168 


Love  of  Country 

commercial  opportunity  ;  whose  thoughts 
are  with  the  markets  rather  than 
with  the  men  on  the  seas  and  in  the 
field,  and  who  are  dumb,  blind,  cold, 
and  selfish  in  the  presence  of  one 
of  those  historical  movements  which 
appeal  with  irresistible  power  to  the 
generous,  the  open-minded,  and  the 
patriotic.  Baseness  and  meanness  will 
continue  to  stain  the  noblest  causes  so 
long  as  men  are  willing  to  be  base  and 
mean  ;  and  the  innate  vulgarity  and 
cowardice  of  these  qualities  are  never  so 
striking  as  when  they  stand  out  against 
the  white  background  of  a  great  and 
generous  devotion.  Every  great  crisis 
has  uncovered  the  hideousness  of  selfish- 
ness, but  it  has  also  uncovered  the  beauty 
of  self-sacrifice.  There  are  many  who 
made  fortunes  in  the  Civil  War,  but  the 
baseness  of  sordid  contractors  and  the 
stony  indifference  of  speculators  are  lost 
in  the  record  of  heroism,  self-forgetful- 
ness,  and  of  that  generous  devotion 
which  scorns  to  count  the  cost. 
169 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

There  is  nothing  nobler  in  men  than 
their  innate  possibiUties  of  courage.  In 
any  crisis  among  intelligent  people  all  de- 
mands on  heroism  are  promptly  met. 
This  has  always  been  true  of  the  nobler 
races  in  their  relations  to  country. 
There  has  been  something  in  the  idea 
of  country  which  has  appealed  to  the 
highest  qualities  of  the  best  men  and 
women.  They  have  given  fortune  and 
life,  not  only  with  unhesitating  cheerful- 
ness, but  with  a  noble  joyfulness  of 
spirit.  In  every  national  crisis  there 
have  been  those  who  have  counted  it 
a  privilege  to  die  for  country.  The 
story  of  every  noble  race  is  a  record  of 
heroism  ;  great  deeds  shining  from  time 
to  time  like  stars  in  a  night  of  unheroic 
moods  and  pursuits ;  splendid  achieve- 
ments redeeming  periods  of  greed  and 
gain  ;  lofty  devotion  blazing  like  a  sudden 
torch  when  the  soul  of  honor  seemed  to 
be  eaten  out  by  selfishness.  Again  and 
again,  when  the  nobler  soul  of  a  race  has 
seemed  to  be  sinking  under  the  tempta- 
170 


Love  of  Country 

tions  of  luxury  and  pleasure,  the  call  of 
the  country  in  some  sudden  peril  has 
rung  like  the  note  of  the  bugle  over  a 
sleeping  garrison,  and  on  the  instant  the 
soul  has  faced  again  the  great  realities  of 
duty  and  sacrifice  with  an  heroic  front. 

Like  all  the  great  passions  and  devo- 
tions, love  of  country  is,  in  the  last  an- 
alysis, instinctive.  It  is  in  the  truest 
sense  rational,  and,  pursued  to  its 
sources,  discloses  the  most  command- 
ing sanctions  of  the  intellect  and  of  the 
moral  sense ;  but  no  passionate  love  of 
country  was  ever  yet  grounded  upon  a 
process  of  reasoning ;  it  has  its  roots 
deep  in  the  soil  of  the  spiritual  nature. 
Men  feel  the  divine  quality  in  the  State 
even  when  they  do  not  recognize  it;  as 
men  feel  the  divine  element  in  the  family 
even  when  they  fail  clearly  to  discern  it. 
There  is  something  sacred  and  incom- 
municable in  one's  country.  The  con- 
ception is,  in  a  sense,  abstract ;  and  yet 
nothing  seems  more  real  and  nothing  is 
more  commanding.  The  soil,  the  land- 
171 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

scape,  the  government,  the  magistrates,  the 
capital,  represent  but  do  not  express  this 
great  conception  of  an  invisible  order 
which,  being  not  only  unseen  but  in- 
definable, speaks  to  the  soul  with  the 
finality  of  supreme  authority.  Archi- 
tecture, art,  literature,  ceremonial,  and 
symbolism  have  striven  in  vain  to  give 
form  and  substance  to  this  elusive  and 
dominating  idea.  It  has  a  thousand 
homes,  but  it  was  never  brought  under 
roof  of  human  making  ;  a  thousand  elo- 
quent voices  have  appealed  to  it  in  words 
which  are  immortal,  but  it  has  never 
spoken  ;  a  thousand  thousand  men  have 
died  for  it,but  it  remains  sublimely  silent ; 
as  if  sacrifice  and  service  and  devotion  and 
beauty  were  its  own  by  virtue  of  eternal 
possession.  And  in  this  very  elusiveness 
lies  the  greatness  and  significance  of  the 
conception.  If  it  had  a  material  form,  it 
might  be  corroded  and  tarnished  ;  if  this 
transcendent  soul  had  a  visible  body,  it 
might  be  corrupted  and  debased ;  but, 
being  essentially  a  spiritual  ideal,  it  is  be- 
172 


Love  of  Country 

yond  the  touch  of  time  and  change  and 
death.  Men  die  for  it,  but  it  remains 
imperishable. 

It  has  been  well  said  that  the  ideals  of 
men  are  the  realities  of  God  ;  and  country 
is  one  of  those  ideals.  If  society  were  of 
human  origin  and  the  State  of  human 
making,  there  would  be  something 
pathetic  in  this  passionate  surrender  of 
the  noblest  spirits  to  an  idea  which  is 
never  at  any  time  radiantly  victorious  in 
social  and  political  conditions.  The 
State  in  its  practical  working  is  never 
without  stains  ;  even  in  the  noblest  peri- 
ods of  public  life  there  are  still  visible  in 
the  organized  life  of  a  great  society  those 
imperfections  which  are  never  absent 
from  the  struggles  and  achievements  of 
men.  And  there  are  times  in  the  history 
of  every  people  when  the  worst  vices  are 
thrown  into  startling  relief  by  the  cor- 
ruption and  inefficiency  of  political 
leaders.  On  the  side  of  organization  the 
State  is  human,  and  is  never  wholly  free 
from  the  imperfections  of  human  nature  ; 
173 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

but  in  origin  and  function  the  State  is 
divine,  and,  however  men  may  obscure 
its  shining,  that  divinity  is  never  wholly 
lost.  All  the  great  institutions  —  the 
Family,  the  Church,  and  the  State — re- 
veal the  divine  order  under  which  society 
is  constituted,  and  the  divinely  guided 
education  by  which  society  is  being 
slowly  trained  in  those  great  qualities  of 
character  which  are  the  foundation  of 
civilization  and  of  individual  liberty, 
growth,  and  happiness.  The  State,  so 
often  degraded  by  the  selfishness  and 
folly  of  its  citizens,  still  silently  does 
God's  work  in  the  world  and  administers 
his  government. 

It  is  this  element  of  the  divine  in  the 
organized  life  of  a  people  which  gives  the 
conception  of  country  such  power  over 
the  noblest  imaginations,  such  depth  of 
root  in  the  greatest  hearts.  In  this  con- 
ception all  the  range  and  vastness  and 
complexity  of  the  life  of  a  people  are 
gathered  up  and  symbolized :  past  his- 
tory, illustrious  characters,  noble  achieve- 
174 


Love  of  Country 

ments,  immortal  heroisms,  churches, 
schools,  art,  architecture,  landscape,  soil, 
»  commerce  —  the  fathomless  stream  of  the 
historic  life  of  a  race  pours  all  its  treas- 
ures of  memory,  resource,  possession, 
and  possibility  into  this  sublime  concep- 
tion. No  other  idea  which  dominates 
men  stands  for  more  that  makes  life  great 
and  imperishable.  If  there  were  no  ele- 
ment of  divinity  in  the  origin  and  func- 
tion of  the  State,  the  glory  of  human 
achievement  and  the  pathos  of  human 
suffering  which  are  bound  up  in  it  would 
make  it  sacred  to  all  who  have  a  care  for 
the  things  of  the  spirit. 

In  the  degree  in  which  one  sees  the 
spiritual  significance  of  institutions  will 
he  love  his  country.  In  that  love  there 
is  no  selfishness  ;  it  is  the  only  prepara- 
tion which  trains  a  man  to  love  humanity 
in  all  countries.  He  who  feels  no  pas- 
sionate devotion  to  his  own  country  will 
never  care  for  the  world ;  as  he  who  does 
not  love  his  own  family  will  never  love 
the  community.  The  beginning  of  love 
175 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

for  one's  neighbors  is  love  for  one's  kin, 
and  the  beginning  of  love  for  the  race  is 
love  for  one's  country;  "  for  he  that  loveth 
not  his  brother  whom  he  hath  seen,  how 
can  he  love  God  whom  he  hath  not 
seen  ?  "  All  noble  and  sound  cosmopol- 
itanism of  spirit  is  rooted  in  love  of  one's 
country.  He  who  is  not  stirred  out  of 
selfishness  by  the  thought  of  the  depth 
and  beauty  and  pathos  of  the  life  of  his 
own  people  will  never  enter  into  true 
communion  with  the  life  of  the  race. 

Over  all  individual  lives  shines  this 
conception  of  the  life  which  includes  all 
lesser  lives ;  over  all  individual  duties 
rises  always  this  supreme  duty  ;  over  all 
individual  aims  and  gains  stands  this 
sublime  ideal  of  the  final  authority  of  the 
divine  and  imperishable  element  in 
human  society.  When  it  speaks,  all 
other  voices  become  silent ;  when  it  com- 
mands, all  loyal  hearts  obey  ;  to  die  at  its 
bidding  is  better  than  to  live  for  one's 
self 


176 


Chapter  XXIV 

Bearing  the  Burden 

ONLY  once  or  twice  in  the  record 
of  the  life  of  Christ  are  we  made 
aware  of  his  own  burdens.  What  those 
burdens  were  we  can  discern  even  when 
we  cannot  comprehend :  loneliness  of 
spirit,  the  deep  repulsion  of  a  perfectly 
pure  nature  in  an  impure  society,  the 
solitude  of  a  great  love  in  an  unloving 
world,  the  sense  of  isolation,  the  pain  of 
rejection,  the  anguish  of  betrayal,  the 
pains  of  death.  That  these  burdens  were 
heavier  than  man  ever  bore  before  or  has 
carried  since  becomes  more  clear  as  we 
are  able  to  read  the  consciousness  of  the 
Son  of  God  as  it  unfolded  under  the 
conditions  of  human  life.  There  must 
have  been  times  when  the  moral  anguish 
of  Christ   was    measured     only    by    the 

13  177 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

distance  between  his  ideals  of  purity 
and  righteousness  and  the  standards  of 
the  society  about  him.  When  the  man 
of  refined  instinct  and  dehcate  training  is 
compelled  to  live  in  the  unspeakable 
physical  and  moral  conditions  of  the 
most  degraded  poor  in  modern  cities, 
his  soul  and  body  cry  out  in  revolt ; 
every  breath  in  such  a  polluted  air  is 
torture.  What  must  have  been  the  suf- 
fering of  the  sinless  and  stainless  Christ 
in  a  world  blackened  with  sin,  blasted 
with  hate  and  malice,  foul  with  all  moral 
uncleanness  ?  We  may  look  at  this 
burden  among  the  many  which  Christ 
bore,  but  we  cannot  really  look  into  it ; 
there  were  depths  in  that  experience  which 
we  cannot  sound. 

Of  all  this  burden-bearing  how  little 
is  said  !  In  divine  silence  the  divine 
sufferer  endures  ;  and  only  one  or  twice, 
when  the  blackness  of  darkness  is  upon 
him,  does  the  anguish  of  the  great  spirit 
become  audible.  Add  to  these  personal 
burdens  the  absence  of  that  sense  of 
178 


Bearing  the  Burden 

fellowship  which  strengthens  us  when 
the  load  cuts  deep,  and  the  measure 
of  the  endurance  of  Christ  becomes  still 
more  clear.  Among  all  the  men  who  fol- 
lowed and  all  the  women  who  loved  him 
there  was  not  one  who  could  give  him 
real  spiritual  companionship.  Among 
them  all  not  one  entered  into  the  heart 
of  his  life ;  not  one  comprehended  the 
nature  of  his  trial.  They  gave  him 
shelter ;  they  hung  upon  his  words ; 
they  gave  him  care  and  love ;  in  the 
end  they  saw  the  divinity  in  him  and 
died  for  him  in  victorious  faith ;  but 
while  he  was  with  them  not  one  broke 
the  solitude  of  his  inward  life ;  no  one 
gave  him  counsel,  no  one  touched  the 
secret  of  his  sorrow  with  the  divination  of 
love ;  they  were  blind  and  dumb  in  the 
presence  of  his  heaviest  burden.  And  yet 
never,  save  in  the  last  terrible  hour,  does 
he  break  the  rule  of  divine  reticence 
which  he  had  imposed  upon  himself. 
He  bore  his  own  burdens  in  silence. 
For  the  greatest  of  all  the  burden- 
179 


Life  of  the  Spirit    • 

bearers  the  world  has  ever  known  there 
was,  however,  the  divinest  of  all  refuges 
from  personal  sorrow :  the  bearing  of  the 
burdens  of  the  world.  He  was  no  weary- 
Titan  bending  beneath  the  weight  of  a 
sorrowful  world ;  his  mighty  load  of  care 
was  borne,  not  only  with  the  patience  of 
a  divine  fortitude,  but  with  the  divine 
hopefulness  of  one  who  read  the  mystery 
of  man's  sorrow  and  saw  at  the  heart  of 
it  a  divine  liberation  and  enrichment. 
There  were  many  shadows  which  Christ 
did  not  strive  to  lift ;  burdens  which  he 
did  not  endeavor  to  remove ;  black  mys- 
teries which  he  did  not  attempt  to  explain. 
He  knew  their  secret,  but  he  could  not 
reveal  it  because  there  were  no  words  in 
human  speech  to  contain  it,  and  no  reach 
of  spiritual  experience  in  those  who  heard 
him  to  interpret  it.  The  limitation  of 
our  knowledge  did  not  rest  upon  his 
insight,  but  upon  his  power  of  commu- 
nication. He  was  like  a  wise  man  deal- 
ing with  children  ;  his  knowledge  outran 
the  boundaries  of  their  understanding. 
i8o 


Bearing  the  Burden 

He  was  silent  about  many  things  be- 
cause, if  he  had  spoken,  we  could  not 
have  understood  him.  But  though  he 
saw  beyond  the  narrow  limits  of  human 
knowledge,  he  seemed  to  feel  the  more 
deeply  for  those  who  suffered  and  could 
not  understand  why  they  suffered.  His 
heart  went  out  to  the  great  multitudes 
shut  in  so  often,  in  so  many  ways,  by  the 
mists  of  ignorance.  He  could  not  ex- 
plain the  divine  purpose  back  of  all 
human  sorrow,  but  he  could  reveal  the 
divine  attitude  toward  the  burden-laden 
world.  He  did  not  explain  death  and 
loss  and  human  anguish,  but  in  the 
crowded  ways  along  which  men  walked 
in  uncertainty  and  grief  he  seemed  to  be 
always  saying,  "  Come  unto  me,  and  I  will 
give  you  rest."  He  bore  our  burdens 
and  carried  our  sorrows,  and  yet  he  spoke 
with  serene  certainty  of  the  love  of  God  ! 
In  the  light  of  his  life  all  lives  must 
find  their  strength  and  peace  ;  in  his  spirit 
all  men  who  are  eager  to  share  the  bur- 
dens of  their  fellows  must  find  that  cour- 
i8i 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

age  which  is  the  source  of  helpfulness. 
The  despairing  may  sympathize,  but 
they  cannot  assuage,  inspire,  or  con- 
sole. The  deepest  experience  comes  to 
those  alone  who  drink  of  the  cup  which 
is  held  to  the  lips  of  humanity,  who  share 
the  fortunes  of  the  race.  If  a  man  stand 
apart  from  his  fellows  in  some  garden  of 
ease  and  comfort,  walled  in  from  the  high- 
way along  which  the  common  sorrows 
pass,  he  may  have  some  hours  of  peace 
and  enjoyment,  but  he  will  never  know 
what  life  means ;  he  will  never  touch  the 
sources  of  spiritual  growth  ;  he  will  never 
know  what  is  in  the  depths  of  his  own 
spirit.  To  shut  one's  self  away  from  the 
cares  of  men  is  to  miss  that  deeper  edu- 
cation for  which  the  spiritual  order  of  the 
world  stands.  The  end  of  living  is  not 
to  escape  experience,  but  to  share  it ;  and 
no  experience  is  so  deep  and  great  as  that 
which  comes  to  the  race  in  its  griefs  and 
cares.  We  escape  from  our  own  limita- 
tions in  the  exact  measure  in  which  we 
give  ourselves  up  to  spiritual  fellowship 
182 


Bearing  the  Burden 

with  our  race ;  and  there  is  no  diviner 
privilege  than  the  opportunity  of  bear- 
ing burdens  which  rest  on  the  shoulders 
of  others  and  of  entering  into  the  sorrows 
which  pierce  the  hearts  of  others.  In  a 
national  crisis  the  true  citizen  does  not 
feel  the  less  because  he  is  not  touched  in 
person  or  property  ;  his  heart  bears  the 
general  anxiety  as  if  it  were  a  private 
burden.  And  the  man  who  goes  his 
own  way  in  such  an  experience,  without 
care  or  anxiety,  not  only  reveals  a  shallow 
nature,  but  misses  the  chance  of  a  great 
enrichment  of  his  own  life.  There  is  no 
nobility  in  the  man  who  is  burdened  only 
when  he  feels  the  weight  on  his  own 
shoulders  ;  for  we  approach  the  stature  of 
Christ  in  the  exact  measure  in  which  we 
carry,  with  him,  the  burdens  of  the  world. 
We  make  those  burdens  lighter,  and 
the  sorrows  of  this  mysterious  experience 
we  call  life  easier  to  bear,  only  as  we  share 
with  him  also  the  divine  vision  and  hope- 
fulness. It  is  always  noble  to  bear  the 
burdens  of  men,  but  we  diminish  those 
183 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

burdens  only  as  we  carry  them  with  a 
faith  which  gives  us  courage  and  serenity. 
A  sorrowful  Christ  would  have  won  our 
hearts,  but  could  not  have  delivered  us. 
Deliverance  involves  a  power  greater  than 
that  required  to  bear  the  burden.  The 
man  whose  courage  is  only  sufficient  to 
keep  him  in  his  place  under  the  fire  of 
the  battery  is  brave,  but  he  cannot  be 
one  of  those  leaders  whose  contagious 
heroism  makes  danger  sweet  and  death 
companionable.  If  we  are  to  help  our 
fellows,  we  must  not  only  share  their 
fortunes ;  we  must  rise  above  them. 
Every  hero  inspires  his  followers  with 
the  faith  that  there  is  something  for 
which  life  may  wisely  and  well  be  sur- 
rendered ;  a  gain  for  which  death  is  not 
too  great  a  price  to  pay.  The  true 
burden-bearer  must  feel  the  weight  and 
pain;  but  he  must  also  endure  as  if  these 
sorrows  of  an  hour  were  but  the  price  of 
a  strength  and  growth  and  vision  in  the 
final  possession  of  which  all  sacrifices  will 
seem  small. 

184 


Chapter  XXV 

The  Spirit  of  Helpfulness 

IF  the  moods  of  society  were  clearly 
reflected  in  history,  it  would  be 
found  that  periods  of  depression  come 
to  communities  as  they  come  to  indi- 
viduals, and  that,  at  irregular  intervals, 
the  world  sweeps  into  the  shadow  of  low 
spirits  and  sometimes  of  despair.  Look- 
ing back  over  the  landscape  of  the  past, 
there  are,  here  and  there  over  the  surface, 
fog-banks  and  low-lying  clouds  which 
shut  out  the  sunlight  and  breed  all  man- 
ner of  spiritual  disease.  The  man  who 
despairs  is  an  easy  prey  to  temptation  of 
every  kind  ;  for  such  a  man  has  lost  his 
way  and  is  bewildered  by  the  morass  into 
which  he  has  strayed.  It  is  one  of  the 
peculiarities  of  men  in  a  period  of  depres- 
sion   that     they    count    their     weakness 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

strength,  and  regard  the  very  absence  of 
vitality  which  oppresses  them  as  an  evi- 
dence of  superior  intelligence.  A  buoy- 
ant, hopeful  age  is  always  aggressive, 
often  turbulent,  sometimes  insolent ;  a 
despondent  age  is  always  self-satisfied, 
critical,  scornful.  Such  an  age  looks 
back  upon  the  enthusiasms  of  a  more 
hopeful  time  with  a  pitying  commiser- 
ation. It  folds  the  scanty  cloak  of  its 
own  superiority  about  it  and  rejoices  that 
it  is  no  longer  the  victim  of  hopes,  dreams, 
and  illusions.  Laying  hold  of  one  side 
of  experience,  it  preaches  a  cheap  and 
thin  philosophy  of  cautious  and  selfish 
moderation. 

A  large  part  of  the  world  has  been  pass- 
ing through  such  a  period  of  depression 
for  the  last  two  decades  ;  in  art,  liter- 
ature, philosophy,  and  politics  the  prevail- 
ing note  has  been  critical,  skeptical,  and 
cynical.  A  fog  has  hung  over  a  large  sec- 
tion of  society,  and  has  so  long  obscured 
the  sun  that  men  have  begun  to  question 
whether  there  is  any  sun.  The  philoso- 
i86 


The  Spirit  of  Helpfulness 

phy  of  disenchantment  has  been  accepted 
not  only  as  if  it  were  final  but  as  if  it 
were  noble  ;  so  great  is  the  skill  of  the 
mind  in  making  darkness  take  the  place 
of  light  when  the  solid  highway  of  sanity, 
morality,  and  generous  ideals  is  forsaken  ! 
Far-seeing  men  have  known  that  society 
was  lying  under  a  fog  which  some  morn- 
ing wind  would  suddenly  sweep  beyond 
the  horizon  ;  but  there  have  been  many 
who  have  insisted  that  fog  is  the  natural 
envelope  of  the  earth,  and  that  to  live  in 
a  mist  which  distorts  all  objects  and 
chills  the  very  soul  is  the  highest  of 
all  privileges.  That  fog  is  already  per- 
ceptibly thinner  ;  sensitive  minds  feel  the 
warmth  of  approaching  sunshine ;  there 
is  a  rising  tide  of  vitality  and  hope  in  the 
arts.  Naturalism,  cynicism,  and  skepti- 
cism have  had  their  turn  ;  the  world  has 
gone  through  its  bad  quarter-of-an-hour ; 
God  is  becoming  credible  again,  because 
the  vision  of  society  is  beginning  to  clear. 
It  ought  to  be  cut  into  the  memory  of 
humanity  that  depression  is  never  the 
187 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

normal  mood  of  healthy  men  ;  it  is  al- 
ways the  evidence  of  disease.  When  a 
man  begins  to  take  low  views  of  himself 
and  of  his  fellows,  instead  of  comforting 
himself  with  the  feeling  that  he  is  be- 
coming emancipated  from  the  weakness 
of  lesser  men,  let  him  consult  a  wise 
physician,  diet  himself,  and  take  more 
time  for  exercise.  Such  a  man  needs  the 
open  air  and  the  sunlight.  Depression 
is  always  the  result  of  intellectual,  spirit- 
ual, or  physical  exhaustion  ;  it  marks  the 
ebb  of  the  tide ;  it  stamps  a  period  as 
inferior  in  vitality  and  a  society  as  defec- 
tive in  creative  power.  The  art  of  such 
a  time  may  show  signs  of  power  here  and 
there,  but  it  is  never  sound,  well-balanced, 
progressive  ;  it  is  always  morbid,  inhar- 
monious, and  retrogressive ;  it  tends 
constantly  to  run  into  all  manner  of  ex- 
cesses and  extravagances.  It  is  the  art 
of  a  Verlaine,  not  of  a  Tennyson. 

There  is  a  superficial  optimism  which 
is  neither  rational  nor  wholesome;  a  mere 
sensuous  content  which  affirms  that  all 
1 88 


The  Spirit  of  Helpfulness 

things  are  as  they  ought  to  be  because 
its  own  comfort  is  secure.  There  are 
men  whose  cheerfulness  does  not  count, 
because  it  is  purely  a  matter  of  tempera- 
ment; such  men  would  smile  over  a 
wrecked  universe.  Against  this  easy- 
going, good-natured  mood,  which  accepts 
"  rings"  and  "  bosses  "  in  politics  as  nec- 
essary evils  and  will  not  fight  them  to  the 
death  as  the  deadly  enemies  of  society  ; 
which  sits  content  in  a  social  order  full 
of  injustice  because  it  is  more  comfortable 
to  let  things  alone  ;  which  tolerates  low 
standards,  easy  morals,  cheap  education, 
and  vulgar  manners ;  it  is  the  bounden 
duty  of  all  right-minded  men  to  protest, 
in  season  and  out  of  season.  This  false 
optimism  is,  if  possible,  worse  than  pes- 
simism, because  it  obliterates  moral  dis- 
tinctions and  cheapens  the  idea  of  God  ; 
and  it  is  better  to  reject  the  idea  of  God 
than  to  vulgarize  it.  But  this  easy-going, 
good-natured  acquiescence  in  things  as 
they  are  must  not  for  a  moment  be  con- 
founded with  true  optmism :  the  belief 
189 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

in  a  divine  order  being  worked  out  in  an 
imperfect  world,  in  a  divine  salvation 
being  wrought  out  in  a  sinful  race.  The 
true  optimist  is  often  at  one  with  the  pes- 
simist in  affirming  that,  at  the  moment, 
conditions  could  not  be  worse  ;  but  he 
instantly  parts  company  with  the  pessi- 
mist by  adding  that  there  is  a  power  in 
the  world  which  can  make  them  better, 
and  a  capacity  in  man  to  co-operate  with 
that  power. 

Pessimism  has  its  roots  in  atheism  ;  its 
essence  is  disbelief  in  God  and  in  man. 
It  sees  the  disorder  in  the  world,  and 
doubts  the  existence  of  an  eternal  order  ; 
it  sees  the  lawlessness  in  society,  and 
questions  the  reign  of  law ;  it  sees  the 
confusion  of  society,  and  doubts  the  pos- 
sibility of  the  higher  unity.  Its  sorrow 
over  the  evil  among  men  is  easily  changed 
to  scorn,  because  it  disbelieves  in  the 
possible  purity  of  men  ;  its  pity  changes 
into  contempt,  because  it  has  no  sympa- 
thy. The  curse  of  pessimism  is  its  blind- 
ness ;  it  sees  the  immediate  condition, 
190 


The  Spirit  of  Helpfulness 

but  it  does  not  see  the  possibilities  of 
redemption.  It  recognizes  the  evil  deed, 
but  it  has  no  insight  into  the  depths  of 
the  human  soul.  It  is  without  pity  and 
without  sympathy,  and  it  is  smitten,  there- 
fore, with  permanent  sterility  ;  it  can  call 
attention  to  injustice  and  unrighteousness, 
but  it  can  offer  no  remedies ;  it  can 
bring  sin  home  to  the  conscience,  but  it 
has  no  power  of  redemption.  If  Christ 
had  been  a  pessimist,  the  mighty  power 
which  has  flowed  from  him  to  the  ends 
of  the  earth  would  not  have  touched  his 
nearest  follower.  There  is  neither  heart, 
help,  nor  hope  in  pessimism  ;  it  is,  at  the 
best  and  in  its  purest  condition,  a  blind 
protest  against  wrong. 

At  the  heart  of  all  really  constructive 
movements  in  society  lie  two  qualities  : 
sympathy  and  faith.  Without  these 
qualities  it  is  possible  to  discourage  men, 
but  not  to  help  them.  Much  moral 
force  has  been  wasted  in  this  country  of 
late  years  because  many  of  those  who 
rightly  revolted  against  the  low  standards 
191 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

of  our  public  life  made  their  protest  in  a 
cynical  spirit ;  they  sneered  and  scoffed 
where  they  ought  to  have  rekindled 
hope  and  enthusiasm.  George  William 
Curtis  was  a  noble  example  of  that  far- 
seeing  optimism  which,  in  boldly  attack- 
ing present  abuses  and  exposing  evil  and 
corrupt  methods,  reinspired  hope  in  the 
integrity  of  the  people  and  the  possibility 
of  political  reformation.  Mr.  Curtis 
sympathized  profoundly  with  his  coun- 
trymen, and  had  an  unshaken  faith  in 
them  ;  his  voice  had,  therefore,  a  note 
of  confidence  and  cheer.  Too  many  of 
those  who  stood  with  him  in  his  fight 
against  the  rule  of"  machines"  and  that 
blind  partisanship  which  is  the  worst 
enemy  of  parties  have  been  willing  to 
denounce,  but  have  not  been  able  to  lead, 
because  they  had  no  faith  ;  and  without 
faith  there  is  no  leadership.  They  have 
been  sterile  critics  instead  of  fruitful  re- 
formers. Society  needs  keen,  sharp, 
courageous  criticism  ;  but  it  must  be  the 
criticism  of  the  friend,  not  of  the  cynic. 
192 


The  Spirit  of  Helpfulness 

There  is  place  for  the  pessimist  in  the 
arraignment  of  the  world  for  its  sins,  but 
no  place  for  him  in  its  redemption.  It  is 
impossible  to  redeem  a  man  unless  one 
has  faith  in  him.  And  it  ought  to  be 
added  that  faith  in  God  and  in  man  is 
not  only  the  beginning  of  happiness,  but 
of  sound  judgment  and  practical  wisdom 
and  genuine  human  happiness. 


13  193 


Chapter  XXVI 

Courage  the   Only  Safety 

THE  duty  of  measuring  one's  power 
accurately  in  accepting  responsi- 
bilities is  often  illustrated  by  the  disasters 
which  overtake  those  who  fail  to  gauge 
their  ability  to  endure  or  to  achieve  ;  but  it 
is  nobler  to  fail  through  excess  of  courage 
than  through  cowardice.  Those  who  sit 
well  housed,  well  warmed,  and  well  fed 
often  commend  themselves  as  discreet 
users  of  opportunity  and  successful 
solvers  of  the  problems  of  living,  when, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  are  leaving  the 
doors  of  opportunity  unopened  and  evad- 
ing the  problems  of  life.  Success  in 
dealing  with  life  consists  in  resolutely 
closing  with  it  and  measuring  one's  self 
fearlessly  against  its  greatest  forces. 
Harbours  are  for  unused  ships  ;  the  craft 
194 


Courage  the  Only  Safety 

that  forwards  the  interests  of  commerce 
must  live  on  the  high  sea.  What  we  call 
life,  which  is  only  another  name  for  ex- 
perience, is  to  be  sought,  not  evaded ; 
and  he  is  happiest,  not  who  gains  and 
keeps  the  most,  but  who  has  the  widest 
opportunity  of  sounding  the  depths  of 
experience,  and  of  pouring  out  the  entire 
force  of  his  personality  through  thought, 
feeling,  and  activity.  There  is  a  very 
superficial  philosophy  behind  the  aphor- 
ism so  often  quoted  :  "  Happy  the  peo- 
ple without  a  history."  A  man  without 
a  history  is  a  power  which  has  never 
been  developed,  a  force  which  has  never 
been  applied,  a  world  of  possibilities 
which  has  never  been  explored  and 
organized. 

The  fortunate  races  are  not  "  knitters 
in  the  sun,"  lotus-eaters  by  the  river  of 
life  ;  they  are  rather  the  road-makers,  the 
sea-farers,  the  city-builders,  the  light- 
bringers.  They  are  the  Greeks,  the  Jews, 
the  English,  the  French  ;  not  the  Eski- 
mos, the  Patagonians,  the  Thibetans. 
195  """^ 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

Living  at  ease,  without  care,  responsi- 
bility, or  sorrow,  untouched  by  sadness 
and  unvisited  by  calamity,  involves 
escape,  not  from  pain  and  loss,  but  from 
growth,  education,  power,  and  leadership. 
To  avoid  the  discomforts  of  travel  by 
hugging  one's  own  fireside  is  to  miss  some 
of  the  richest  sources  of  pleasure  which 
life  offers,  and  some  of  its  most  searching 
educational  influences.  To  keep  out  of 
the  path  of  sorrow  by  keeping  clear  of 
close  human  relationships  is  to  put  into 
a  safe  place,  without  possibility  of  in- 
crease, a  little  patrimony  which  might 
have  grown  into  a  vast  fortune.  It  is 
better  to  lose,  with  Dante,  the  lesser 
comforts  if  at  such  a  price  one  may  learn 
the  great  secrets  of  the  human  soul  in  its 
unfathomable  experiences. 

Fear  in  all  its  forms  is  a  kind  of  athe- 
ism. The  man  who  is  afraid  has  lost  his 
faith  ;  he  no  longer  believes  in  God.  If 
this  world  were  in  the  hands  of  an  evil 
spirit,  as  some  savage  peoples  have  be- 
lieved, fear  would  be  logical  and  inevl- 
196 


Courage  the  Only  Safety 

table ;  but  in  a  world  of  God's  making 
there  is  no  room  for  it.  For  the  essence 
of  fear  is  the  feeling  that  something  which 
we  do  not  understand  or  cannot  control 
may  do  us  harm.  If  we  were  the  victims 
of  a  malign  creative  power,  or  the  pro- 
ducts of  an  impersonal  cosmic  system,  or 
the  tenants  at  will  of  a  house  which  had 
no  owner,  a  world  which  had  no  maker, 
we  might  wisely  shield  ourselves  behind 
every  possible  precaution  against  peril. 
Many  people  go  through  life  as  if  they 
were  dependent  on  their  own  sagacity  for 
safety  ;  they  choose  their  way  like  a 
picket-line  through  woods  full  of  sharp- 
shooters. They  suspect  every  tree  and 
rock  in  the  path  ;  they  are  always  antici- 
pating some  kind  of  evil ;  they  are  beset 
with  forebodings,  consumed  with  anxie- 
ties, oppressed  by  apprehension.  They 
live  as  if  surrounded  by  invisible  foes  ; 
as  if  the  universe  were  hostile  and  life 
inimical  to  happiness.  The  ancients  be- 
lieved that  the  gods  were  envious  of  the 
good  fortune  of  man,  and  that  the  pros- 
197 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

perous  man  must  hide  the  evidences  of 
his  prosperity. 

This  attitude  of  excessive  caution  and 
suspicion  would  be  wise  if  the  devil  were 
God  ;  but,  God  being  what  he  is,  it  is 
supreme  folly.  The  universe  is  not 
against  us,  it  is  for  us  ;  as  fast  as  we  come 
to  understand  its  laws  they  become  our 
ministers.  Life  is  not  unfriendly  ;  in 
the  exact  degree  in  which  we  make  our- 
selves its  pupils  does  it  teach,  nurture, 
and  develop  us.  There  is  always  the 
possibility  of  what  we  call  disaster:  the 
sudden  interruption  of  our  plans,  the  un- 
expected shattering  of  our  hopes,  the  an- 
guish of  sorrow  and  loss ;  but  there  are 
also  great  consolations,  divine  hopes ; 
there  are  God  and  immortality.  The 
difficulty  is  not  with  the  great  order  of 
life,  but  with  our  inability  to  comprehend 
that  order.  We  act  as  if  we  were  alone 
in  the  world,  fighting  a  solitary  battle 
against  an  invisible  foe  ;  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  there  is  no  unseen  foe,  and  our  only 
battle  is  with  ourselves.  The  interrup- 
198 


Courage  the  Only  Safety 

tion  of  our  plans  is  often  their  real  ful- 
filment ;  what  seems  to  be  a  final  loss  is 
often  a  supreme  gain ;  even  our  afflic- 
tions, in  the  full  reach  of  life,  are  "  for 
the  moment."  Demosthenes  thought 
the  life  of  Athens  at  an  end  when  Philip 
conquered ;  not  discerning  that  the 
breaking  of  the  vase  was  to  fill  the  world 
with  the  fragrance  of  that  which  it  im- 
prisoned. In  national  sorrows  the  seeds 
of  national  greatness  are  often  sown ;  in 
personal  losses,  which  at  the  time  seem 
crushing  in  their  severity,  the  foundations 
of  spiritual  prosperity  are  often  laid. 
Many  a  man  looks  back  and  thanks  God 
for  the  events  in  his  life  which  once 
seemed  disastrous,  but  which,  in  the 
clearer  light  of  time,  disclose  the  beauty 
of  noble  opportunity.  We  are  contin- 
ually closing  the  doors  against  the  angels 
of  opportunity  because  they  wear  a  garb 
that  seems  menacing  or  repellent  to  us. 

That  which  justifies  courage  in  facing 
the  possibilities  of  life   is  the  conviction 
that  its  master  is  our  Lord  as  well ;  that 
199 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

it  is  so  framed  that  "  all  things  work  to- 
gether for  good  "  to  those  who  are  obe- 
dient to  the  laws  of  life ;  that  our  little 
plans  are  embraced  in  a  greater  and  wiser 
plan ;  that  "  light  is  sown  for  the  right- 
eous," the  mysterious  future  silently 
beckoning  us  forward  into  paths  that 
seem  dark  and  ominous  but  which  end 
on  the  summits  of  the  mountains.  He 
who  distrusts,  holds  back,  and  fears, 
misses  the  great  opportunity  and  loses 
the  noble  achievement ;  he  who  trusts 
and  dares  plucks  the  flower  of  victory 
out  of  the  very  jaws  of  death.  In  such 
a  world  as  this  courage  is  the  only  safety  ; 
the  coward  is  lost.  There  is  no  possible 
retreat  and  no  place  where  one  can  hide 
himself;  safety  lies  in  pushing  resolutely 
on  through  storm  and  darkness  and  dan- 
ger. These  are  but  the  shadows  on  the 
path  ;  for  the  brave  they  have  no  real 
existence.  In  such  a  world  he  who  takes 
God  at  his  word  and  ventures  most  is 
most  cautious  and  far-seeing ;  and  the 
more  daring  the  faith,  the  greater  the 
200 


Courage  the  Only  Safety 

certainty  of  achievement.  "  God  being 
with  us,  who  can  be  against  us  ?  "  It  is 
our  part  to  welcome  responsibility,  to 
crave  the  difficult  work,  to  seek  the  dan- 
gerous duty  ;  for  these  are  our  divinest 
opportunities  of  service  and  growth. 


20I 


Chapter  XXVII 

The  Incompleteness  of  Life 

ONE  source  of  the  feeling  of  depres- 
sion which  sometimes  settles  down 
over  society  and,  like  a  penetrating  mist, 
drives  people  into  their  places  of  refuge 
and  inclines  them  to  sit  by  the  fire  rather 
than  to  climb  the  hills  or  explore  the 
woods,  is  the  reaction  from  hopes  that 
were  set  too  high.  A  man's  hopes  must 
be  as  rational  as  his  acts  ;  they  must  rest 
on  reality  and  be  harmonized  with  exist- 
ing conditions.  One  may  dream  as  he 
pleases,  for  dreams  may  lie  outside  the 
sphere  not  only  of  the  actual  but  of  the 
possible ;  a  man  ought  to  hope,  however, 
for  those  things  only  which  lie  within  his 
reach.  That  reach  may  be  immensely 
extended,  and  hope  involves  this  en- 
largement   of  reach    rather    than     those 


The  Incompleteness  of  Life 

magic  happenings  which  bring  fortune, 
fame,  and  influence  to  our  doors.  A 
rational  hope  ought  to  rest  in  the  expec- 
tation that  one  may  have  the  strength  to 
pursue  and  overtake  these  difficult  and 
elusive  rewards,  rather  than  in  the  expec- 
tation that  they  will  seek  him  out.  For 
hope  involves  the  possibility  of  realiza- 
tion, and  must  be  shaped,  therefore,  by 
the  molding  touch  of  an  intelligent 
purpose. 

Men  are  prone  to  disregard  this  law 
and  to  transform  their  dreams  into  hopes  ; 
and  when  these  dreams  are  shattered  by  a 
rude  awakening,  they  inveigh  against  the 
order ,  of  life,  and  permit  themselves  to 
sink  into  the  slough  of  depression.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  they  have  not  suffered 
any  real  disappointment;  what  has  hap- 
pened has  not  been  a  denial  of  their 
desires,  but  the  disclosure  of  the  unreality 
of  those  desires.  They  never  had  any 
basis  of  reality,  and  their  satisfaction 
would  have  involved  a  violation  of  the 
laws  of  life.  If  a  man  hopes  for  noble 
203 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

successes,  and  disciplines  and  educates 
himself  to  secure  them,  and  they  elude 
him,  he  suffers  a  disappointment  which 
is  real  and  full  of  an  inevitable  pain  ; 
the  man,  on  the  other  hand,  who  hopes 
for  the  highest  things,  but  takes  no  step 
towards  them,  suffers  no  real  disappoint- 
ment when  they  fail  him,  because  he 
never  had  the  right  to  hope  for  them. 
No  man  has  a  right  to  hope  for  things 
which  he  does  not  earn,  and  no  wise  man 
strives  to  earn  things  which  are  clearly 
out  of  his  reach ;  the  blind  man  cannot 
hope  to  paint  pictures,  the  dumb  man  to 
sing,  or  the  lame  man  to  run ;  and  no 
man  has  ground  for  disappointment  if 
things  which  he  has  not  earned,  or  can- 
not earn,  do  not  come  to  him.  True 
hope  is  like  the  light  which  streams  from 
the  lantern  one  carries  in  his  hand  ;  it 
shines  in  advance  of  his  steps,  but  one 
who  is  swiftly  walking  constantly  over- 
takes it. 

Most  of  the  reactions  which  tinge  the 
spirit  of  society  with  gloom  are  irrational, 
204 


The  Incompleteness  of  Life 

because  they  have  their  source  in  the  de- 
nial of  groundless  hope.  When  Words- 
worth first  came  under  the  spell  of  that 
great  revolutionary  movement  which 
swept  sensitive  minds  all  over  Europe 
into  sympathy  with  France  at  the  close 
of  the  last  century,  he  shared  the  general 
expectation  that  the  age  of  liberty,  fra- 
ternity, and  equality  was  at  hand  j  and 
when,  after  the  short  era  of  good  will 
and  popular  fetes  and  enthusiastic  ad- 
dresses to  abstract  virtues,  the  Terror 
came,  like  a  swift  and  awful  tragedy 
usurping  the  place  of  a  sweet  and  tran- 
quil pastoral,  the  poet,  and  a  host  of 
men  of  kindred  purity  of  soul,  lost  heart 
and  hope,  and  went  sorrowfully  back  to 
the  old  political  and  social  order.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  there  never  was  any  ground 
for  the  hopes  of  those  who  believed  that 
the  overthrow  of  the  old  regime  meant 
the  sudden  perfection  of  society.  These 
hopes  fastened  upon  the  ultimate  spiritual 
results  of  political  education,  and  the 
French  people  were  only  battering  down 
205 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

the  doors  which  had  heretofore  shut  them 
out  of  the  elementary  school  of  self-gov- 
ernment. The  hope  of  sudden  regenera- 
tion was  formed  in  entire  disregard  of  the 
laws  of  growth  and  of  life ;  and  was  not 
only  doomed  to  denial  from  the  very 
start,  but  ought  to  have  been  denied. 
Society  suffers  much  from  the  crudity 
of  its  organization  and  the  venality  and 
incompetency  of  those  who  assume  to 
lead  and  govern  it;  but  it  would  suffer 
more  if  it  could,  on  the  instant,  set  itself 
right ;  it  would  lose  that  education  which 
is  of  far  greater  importance  than  the 
attainment  of  specific  results,  however 
noble. 

Our  hopes  are  often  in  direct  antago- 
nism to  our  higher  interests,  because  their 
realization  would  eliminate  the  training 
which  prepares  us  to  use  gifts,  rewards, 
and  gains  of  every  kind.  Nothing  could 
be  more  unfortunate  for  a  boy  than  the 
sudden  acquisition  of  knowledge.  If 
knowledge  could  be  gained  by  specula- 
tion, as  fortunes  are  often  made,  it  would 
206 


The  Incompleteness  of  Life 

become  as  vulgar  and  useless  as  such 
fortunes  usually  are.  For  the  best  part 
of  education  is  not  the  deposit  of  infor- 
mation which  it  leaves  in  a  man's  mind, 
but  the  concentrated  and  intelligent  force 
into  which  it  merges  all  that  is  strongest 
and  best  in  a  man's  nature.  The  process 
through  which  the  boy  is  compelled  to 
pass  in  order  to  gain  knowledge  prepares 
him  to  use  knowledge  wisely  when  he 
finally  gets  it.  Fortunes  which  are  slowly 
accumulated  are  not  often  vulgarly  spent 
or  foolishly  wasted ;  the  discipline  of 
industry  and  frugality  gives  poise  and 
sobriety. 

In  permitting  ourselves  to  hope,  we 
need  to  remind  ourselves  that  this  is  a 
life  of  preparation  rather  than  of  accom- 
plishment, of  processes  rather  than  of 
finalities,  of  growth  rather  than  of  ulti- 
mate achievement.  Rational  hope  in 
the  heart  of  a  man  whose  place  is  in  a 
great  workshop  is  very  different  from 
hope  in  the  heart  of  a  man  who  has 
finished  his  education  and  has  a  right  to 
207 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

seek  his  own  ends.  No  man  is  free  to 
seek  his  own  ends  in  this  life,  because  he 
is  in  the  educational  stage ;  he  is  here  to 
be  trained,  not  to  be  free  to  choose  ulti- 
mate courses.  In  a  great  workshop  there 
is  always  a  certain  tumult ;  the  air  is  never 
free  from  dust ;  the  eye  never  rests  on 
things  that  are  finished,  because  the  fin- 
ished products  are  instantly  removed. 
Every  human  being  is  in  the  process 
of  being  formed;  no  one  is  ever  perfectly 
formed.  Society  is  made  up  of  these 
unfinished  and  incomplete  personalities ; 
it  has  never  yet  produced  a  perfect  perso- 
nality. Everywhere,  among  people  of 
every  condition,  through  countless  in- 
strumentalities of  necessity,  toil,  trade, 
art,  travel,  schools,  politics,  literature, 
chiefly  through  those  greatest  of  instru- 
ments the  family,  the  Church,  and  the 
State,  men  are  being  molded,  developed, 
educated.  Life  is  a  vast  school ;  what  a 
man  is  or  does  after  graduation  no  one 
has  told  us  with  any  detail. 

Every  method  of  work  and  every  stage 
208 


The  Incompleteness  of  Life 

of  attainment  with  which  Hfe  makes  us 
famihar  is  strictly  preparatory ;  and  yet 
we  are  continually  hoping  for  final  results, 
for  ultimate  perfection,  and  are  swift  to 
cry  out  against  the  order  of  things,  and 
even  to  accuse  God  of  trifling  with  us, 
when  those  hopes  are  denied  !  There  is 
a  sense  in  which  we  expect  too  much  of 
ourselves  and  of  others.  Most  of  our 
criticism  of  others  is  either  idle  or  unjust, 
because  it  does  not  take  into  account  the 
obstacles  overcome  and  the  progress  ac- 
complished. The  real  question  with  a 
man  never  is,  "  How  nearly  does  he 
approach  perfection  ?  "  but,  "  How  far 
has  he  travelled  on  his  way  toward  per- 
fection ? "  Some  men,  who  are  still  far 
from  the  goals,  have  already  made  a 
wearisome  journey.  And  such  men 
have  often  done  more  than  those  who 
seem  to  be  within  touch  of  the  goals. 
The  teacher's  deepest  interest  is  not 
always  in  the  student  whose  recitations 
are  most  accurate ;  it  is  oftener  in  the 
boy  whose  record  is  lower  by  reason  of 
14  209 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

lesser  opportunities,  but  who  is  steadily 
moving  to  the  front.  The  only  true 
measure  of  a  man's  success  in  this  life  is 
to  be  found  in  the  growth  he  has  made, 
not  in  the  achievements  he  has  put  to  his 
credit.  The  chief  value  of  these  achieve- 
ments is  the  evidence  they  furnish  of 
growth. 

It  is  an  imperfect  world  because  it  is  a 
divine  world.  If  life  as  we  now  know 
it  were  complete,  then  the  ultimate  meas- 
ure of  success  would  be  at  hand,  and 
our  judgments  of  ourselves  and  others 
might  have  finality.  But  life  as  we  now 
know  it  is  part  of  a  whole  which  lies, 
in  its  completeness,  beyond  our  vision. 
There  is  not  room  enough  in  the  great- 
est human  career  to  develop  and  express 
all  there  is  in  a  man's  nature ;  in  the  case 
of  the  most  noble  and  masterful  career 
nothing  is  accomplished  beyond  personal 
growth  and  a  contribution  to  the  growth 
of  society.  The  most  encouraging  and 
consoling  fact  about  life  is  that  very 
incompletion    which    men    are    so    often 

2IO 


The  Incompleteness  of  Life 

tempted  to  deplore.  The  real  basis  of 
hope  is  in  the  possibilities  of  growth 
which  are  inherent  in  every  personality 
and  in  all  society,  and  not  in  any  perfec- 
tion of  attainment  now  or  in  the  future. 
Society  will  move  toward  perfection,  but 
will  never  touch  the  goal,  because  the 
goal  will  constantly  recede  as  men  ad- 
vance ;  that  is  one  of  the  supreme  joys 
of  immortality. 


211 


Chapter  XXVIII 

A  Spiritual  Opportunity 

TO  keep  work  fresh  and  joyous  one 
must  keep  constantly  in  mind 
its  spiritual  significance.  Work  is  one 
of  the  chief  instrumentalities  in  the 
education  of  the  human  spirit ;  for  it  in- 
volves both  self-realization  and  the  ad- 
justment of  self  to  the  order  of  life. 
Through  effort  a  man  brings  to  light  all 
that  is  in  him,  and  by  effort  he  finds  his 
place  in  the  universal  order.  Work  is 
his  great  spiritual  opportunity,  and  the 
more  completely  he  expresses  himself 
through  it  the  finer  the  product  and  the 
greater  the  worker.  There  is  an  essential 
unity  between  all  kinds  of  work,  as  there 
is  an  essential  continuity  in  the  life  of  the 
race.  The  rudest  implements  of  the 
earliest  men  and  the  divinest  creations  of 

212 


A  Spiritual  Opportunity 

the  greatest  artists  are  parts  of  the  un- 
broken effort  of  humanity  to  bring  into 
clear  consciousness  all  that  is  in  its  soul, 
and  all  that  is  involved  in  its  relationship 
with  the  universe.  The  spiritual  history 
of  the  race  is  written  in  the  blurred  and 
indistinct  record  of  human  energy  and 
creativeness,  made  by  the  hands  of  all 
races,  in  all  times,  in  every  kind  of  mate- 
rial. Work  has  emancipated,  educated, 
developed,  and  interpreted  the  human 
spirit ;  it  has  made  man  acquainted  with 
himself;  it  has  set  him  in  harmony  with 
nature  ;  and  it  has  created  that  permanent 
capital  of  force,  self-control,  character, 
moral  power,  and  educational  influence 
which  we  call  civilization. 

Work  has  been,  therefore,  not  only 
the  supreme  spiritual  opportunity,  but 
the  highest  spiritual  privilege  and  one  of 
the  deepest  sources  of  joy.  It  has  been 
an  expression  not  only  of  human  energy 
but  of  the  creativeness  of  the  human 
spirit.  By  their  works  men  have  not 
only  built  homes  for  themselves  in  this 
213 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

vast  universe,  but  they  have  co-operated 
with  the  divine  creativeness  in  the  con- 
trol of  force,  the  modification  of  condi- 
tions, the  fertilization  of  the  earth,  the 
fashioning  of  new  forms.  In  his  work 
man  has  found  God,  both  by  the  revela- 
tion of  what  is  in  his  own  spirit  and  by 
the  discovery  of  those  forces  and  laws 
with  which  every  created  thing  must  be 
brought  into  harmony. 

The  divine  element  in  humanity  has 
revealed  itself  in  that  instinct  for  creative- 
ness which  is  always  striving  for  expres- 
sion in  the  work  of  humanity  ;  that 
instinct  which  blindly  pushes  its  way 
through  rudimentary  stages  of  effort  to 
the  possession  of  skill  ;  slowly  transform- 
ing itself  meanwhile  into  intelligence,  and 
flowering  at  last  in  the  Parthenon,  the 
Cathedral  at  Amiens,  the  Book  of  Job, 
Faust,  Hamlet,  the  Divine  Comedy, 
Beethoven's  Fifth  Symphony,  Wagner's 
Parsifal,  Rembrandt's  portraits. 

The  ascent  of  the  spirit  of  man  out  of 
the  mysterious  depths  of  its  own  con- 
214 


A  Spiritual  Opportunity 

sciousness  to  these  sublime  heights  of 
achievement  is  the  true  history  of  the 
race  ;  the  history  which  silently  unfolds 
itself  through  and  behind  events,  and 
makes  events  comprehensible.  In  the 
sweat  of  his  brow  man  has  protected  and 
fed  himself;  but  this  is  but  the  beginning 
of  that  continuous  miracle  which  has  not 
only  turned  deserts  into  gardens  and 
water  into  wine,  but  has  transformed  the 
uncouth  rock  into  images  of  immortal 
beauty,  and  the  worker  from  the  servant 
of  natural  conditions  and  forces  into  their 
master. 

Men  still  work,  as  their  fathers  did 
before  them,  for  shelter  and  bread ;  but 
the  spiritual  products  of  work  have  long 
since  dwarfed  its  material  returns.  A 
man  must  still  work  or  starve  in  any 
well-ordered  society  ;  but  the  products  of 
work  to-day  are  ease,  travel,  society,  art ; 
in  a  word,  culture.  In  that  free  unfold- 
ing of  all  that  is  in  man,  and  that  ripen- 
ing of  knowledge,  taste,  and  character 
which  are  summed  up  in  culture,  work 

2^5 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

finds  its  true  interpretation.  A  man 
puts  himself  into  his  work  in  order  that 
he  may  pass  through  an  apprenticeship 
of  servitude  and  crudity  into  the  freedom 
of  creative  power.  He  discovers,  liber- 
ates, harmonizes,  and  enriches  himself. 
Through  work  he  accomplishes  his  des- 
tiny, and  one  of  the  great  ends  of  his  life 
is  to  make  himself  skilful  and  creative  ; 
to  master  the  secrets  of  his  craft  and  then 
pour  his  spiritual  energy  like  a  great  tide 
into  his  work.  The  master  worker  learns 
that  the  secret  of  happiness  is  the  oppor- 
tunity and  the  ability  to  express  nobly 
whatever  is  deepest  in  his  personality, 
and  that  supreme  good  fortune  comes  to 
him  who  can  lose  himself  in  some  gener- 
ous and  adequate  task. 

The  last  word,  however,  is  not  task, 
but  opportunity  ;  for  work,  like  all  forms 
of  education,  prophesies  the  larger  uses 
of  energy,  experience,  and  power  which 
are  to  come  when  training  and  discipline 
have  accomplished  their  ends  and  borne 
their  fruit. 

216 


chapter  XXIX 

Thanksgiving 

MEN  are  prone  to  thank  God  for 
those  prosperities  of  vine  and 
meadow  and  shop  and  ship  which  make 
life  easy  and  comfortable  ;  but  they  are 
rarely  grateful  for  those  divine  happen- 
ings which  make  life  difficult  and  great. 
Times  and  seasons  for  special  thanks- 
giving are  wise  and  necessary ;  for  men 
need  to  be  reminded  of  what  they  have 
received,  and  they  need  to  have  provi- 
sion made  for  the  special  expression  of 
their  gratitude ;  but  the  grateful  man 
does  not  depend  on  days  and  festivals 
for  his  thought  of  God's  goodness  and 
care  for  him  ;  these  thoughts  are  always 
with  him,  and  the  song  of  thanksgiving 
is  always  in  his  heart.  Grace  before  meat 
is  not  an  empty  repetition  of  words ;  it  is 
217 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

the  phrase  that  forms  on  the  Hps  out  of 
the  fulness  of  the  heart.  There  are  days 
so  beautiful  in  their  harmony  of  season, 
temperature,  and  Hght  that  when  they 
dawn  and  we  breathe  the  air  of  the 
radiant  morning  we  say  instinctively, 
"  It  is  good  to  live."  To  be  a  part  of 
the  moving  order  of  the  world  on  such 
a  day  seems  to  be  a  sufficient  reason  for 
existence ;  we  do  not  care  to  go  behind 
the  fact  of  life. 

To  one  who  sees  the  spiritual  order 
of  the  world  and  recognizes  the  sublime 
chances  of  spiritual  fortune  which  it  offers, 
there  is  no  need  of  special  causes  of  grati- 
tude ;  such  a  one  thanks  God  daily  that 
he  lives.  About  him  is  the  glory  of  the 
world  which  God's  stars  light  and  God's 
sun  warms  into  fertility ;  around  him  are 
his  brother  men,  needing  his  care,  calling 
for  his  love,  appealing  for  his  service :  let 
him  stand  where  he  will,  there  is  a  chance 
to  be  and  to  do,  to  live  in  the  depths  of 
the  soul  and  to  pour  out  the  soul  like  a 
river  for  the  refreshment  of  the  world ; 


Thanksgiving 

around  him  are  also  ways  without  number 
of  bearing  the  crosses  of  love  and  making 
its  sacrifices ;  above  him  are  the  shining 
ones  who,  out  of  weakness  such  as  his 
and  in  troubles  and  adversities  like  his 
own,  have  walked  the  way  of  life  with 
steadfast  fidelity  and  made  that  way  lumi- 
nous ;  before  him,  like  a  vast,  half-seen 
avenue  of  some  great  city  at  night, 
stretches  the  path  which  grows  more 
and  more  to  the  perfect  day. 

A  man  is  specially  and  divinely  fortu- 
nate, not  when  his  conditions  are  easy, 
but  when  they  evoke  the  very  best  that 
is  in  him ;  when  they  provoke  him  to 
nobleness  and  sting  him  into  strength  ; 
when  thev  clear  his  vision,  kindle  his 
enthusiasm,  and  inspire  his  will.  The 
best  moments  in  a  man's  life  are  often 
the  hardest  and  the  most  perilous  ;  but 
he  thinks  no  more  of  personal  discom- 
fort and  exposure  than  a  thousand  other 
brave  men  have  thought  of  these  things 
when  the  hour  of  destiny  had  struck. 
When  the  bugle  rings  across  the  field, 
219 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

the  deadly  line  of  fire  that  must  he 
crossed  is  forgotten  in  the  response  to 
the  duty  which  beckons  from  the  heights 
above.  Happy  are  they  to  whom  life 
'  brings,  not  ease  and  physical  comfort,  but 
great  chances  of  heroism,  sacrifice,  and 
service  !  The  great  ages  have  never  been 
comfortable  ages  ;  they  have  demanded 
too  much  and  given  too  much.  The 
comfortable  ages  are  those  which  neither 
urge  a  man  to  leave  his  fireside  nor  offer 
him  great  rewards  if  he  does  so  ;  the  great 
ages  are  those  which  will  not  let  a  man 
rest  for  the  multitude  of  choices  of  works 
and  perils  they  offer  him.  In  easy,  com- 
fortable, money-making  times  men  grow 
callous  to  suffering,  dull  of  insight,  slug- 
gish of  soul ;  in  stirring,  growing,  stimu- 
lating times  they  draw  in  great  breaths 
of  mountain  air,  they  are  afield  with  the 
sun,  consumed  with  eagerness  to  lavish 
the  gift  of  life  in  one  great  outpouring 
of  energy.  One  who  knows  what  to  be 
grateful  for  would  thank  God  for  Drake's 
chance  to  die,  sword  in  hand,  facing  his 
220 


Thanksgiving 

foes  half  a  world  from  home  ;  for  Sidney's 
opportunity  to  pass  on  the  cup  of  water 
to  one  whose  thirst  had  less  to  assuage 
it ;  for  Livingstone's  noble  home-coming, 
borne  in  sorrow  and  silence  out  of  the 
heart  of  the  dark  continent  on  the  shoul- 
ders of  men  who  could  not  measure  his 
greatness  but  who  reverenced  his  spirit. 

For  all  sweet  and  pleasant  passages  in 
the  great  story  of  life  men  may  well  thank 
God  ;  for  leisure  and  ease  and  health  and 
friends  may  God  make  us  truly  and 
humbly  grateful ;  but  our  chief  song  of 
thanksgiving  must  be  always  for  our  kin- 
ship with  Him,  with  all  that  such  divi- 
nity of  greatness  brings  of  peril,  hardship, 
toil,  and  sacrifice. 


221 


chapter  XXX 

Intimations  of  the  Unseen 

HOW  little  of  that  which  makes  up 
life  is  visible  or  tangible  !  We 
habitually  speak  and  act  as  if  there  were 
certain  realities  with  which  we  are  in 
such  immediate  contact  that  we  constantly 
see  and  touch  them  ;  they  exist  beyond 
all  question  because  their  existence  is  evi- 
dent to  the  senses.  The  man  who  is 
willing  to  accept  nothing  of  the  being 
and  nature  of  which  he  has  not  ocular  or 
tangible  proof  accepts  these  things  as 
realities  ;  all  the  rest  he  dismisses  as 
dreams,  or  rejects  as  incapable  of  demon- 
stration. And  he  does  this,  in  many 
cases,  because  he  believes  that  this  is  the 
only  course  open  to  one  who  means  to 
preserve  absolute  integrity  of  intellect 
and  to  be    entirely  honest    with  himself 


Intimations  of  the  Unseen 

and  with  life.  A  man  of  this  temper  is 
ready  to  believe  only  that  which  he  thinks 
he  knows  by  absolute  contact ;  there  is 
much  else  he  would  like  to  believe,  but 
he  will  not  permit  himself  a  consolation 
or  comfort  based  on  a  hope  which  the 
imagination,  or  the  heart  or  the  mind 
working  without  regard  for  certain  laws 
of  evidence,  which  he  arbitrarily  makes, 
has  turned  into  a  reality.  Many  honest 
men  go  through  life  and  will  not  see  God 
because  they  have  bolted  all  the  doors 
through  which  God  can  enter  and  reveal 
himself 

Dr.  Bushnell,  in  a  moment  of  insight, 
once  pictured  to  a  friend  with  whom  he 
was  talking  the  making  of  man.  And 
after  man  was  made  in  His  own  image 
God  said,  "  He  is  complete  ;  "  and  then 
He  added  :  '*  No  ;  there  is  no  way  in 
which  I  can  approach  him.  I  will  open 
the  great  door  of  the  Imagination  in  his 
soul,  so  that  I  may  have  access  to  him." 
And  this  great  door,  which  opens  out- 
ward upon  the  whole  sweep  and  splendor 
223 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

of  the  universe,  some  men  bolt  and  bar 
as  if  it  were  an  unlawful  and  illicit  en- 
trance to  the  soul  !  They  sit  in  the  sub- 
lime theatre  in  which  the  drama  of  human 
life  is  being  enacted,  and  insist  that  there 
is  no  stage  because,  for  the  moment,  the 
curtain  is  down  !  If  there  were  a  blank, 
impenetrable  wall  about  us,  we  might 
bring  ourselves  to  believe  that  there  was 
nothing  beyond  its  solid  structure  ;  but 
that  which  closes  us  in  to  a  certain  range 
of  clear  knowledge  and  sense-perception 
is  not  an  impenetrable  barrier  ;  it  is  the 
thinnest  of  curtains  ;  impenetrable  by  the 
eye,  but  of  such  delicacy  of  fibre  that  the 
breath  of  mortality  seems  to  draw  it  back 
for  a  moment,  of  such  thinness  of  texture 
that  it  glows  or  darkens  as  if  lights  were 
being  kindled  or  extinguished  behind  it. 
The  intelligent  man  who  looks  at  sunrise 
or  sunset  knows  that  there  are  other 
worlds  than  ours,  and  that  the  splendor 
of  dawn  and  the  tender  glory  of  twilight 
are  as  real  in  the  physical  sense  as  the 
solid  earth  under  his  feet.  In  like  man- 
224 


Intimations  of  the  Unseen 

ner,  and  with  equal  conviction,  he  who 
lets  himself  see  all  that  life  reveals  knows 
that  the  light  which  kindles  and  fades 
along  the  horizon-lines  of  the  soul's  life, 
day  after  day,  shines  from  other  suns  than 
those  which  flood  the  vast  abysses  of 
space  with  splendor. 

All  the  deeper  realities  of  life  are  con- 
veyed to  us  by  intimation  rather  than  by 
demonstration.  They  come  to  us  by 
other  roads  than  those  of  the  senses. 
The  persons  to  whom  we  are  bound  in 
the  sweetest  relationships  or  by  the  no- 
blest compulsion  are  never  really  seen  by 
us.  We  see  and  touch  their  garments  ; 
we  never  see  or  touch  them.  They  may 
live  with  us  in  the  closest  intimacy,  and 
yet  no  sense  of  ours  ever  made  a  path  of 
final  approach  between  us.  When  they 
vanish  out  of  life,  they  leave  behind  them 
all  that  we  ever  saw  or  touched  ;  but  how 
pathetically  unavailing  is  the  appeal  of 
the  heart  to  the  garment  laid  aside  in  the 
haste  or  pain  of  the  final  flight  !  All  we 
ever  saw  is  there,  and  yet  it  is  nothing  ! 
15  225 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

That  which  we  loved,  and  which  made 
the  world  dear  and  familiar  through  the 
diffusion  of  its  own  purity  and  sweetness, 
we  never  saw  or  touched.  It  was  never 
within  the  reach  of  our  senses ;  it  was 
accessible  only  to  our  spirits.  So  sacred 
was  it  that  the  final  mystery  was  never 
dissipated ;  so  divine  was  it  that  the  final 
veil  was  never  lifted.  One  came  our  way 
and  dwelt  with  us  in  a  tabernacle  of  flesh, 
even  as  Christ  did,  and  then  departed, 
leaving  behind  all  that  we  ever  saw  or 
touched,  and  yet  taking  with  her  all  that 
was  real,  companionable,  comprehensible  ! 
And  yet  with  this  constant  and  familiar 
illustration  of  the  presence  of  a  reality 
which  we  never  touch  or  see  under  our 
roof  and  by  our  side,  we  reject  the  inti- 
mations that  come  to  us  from  every  quar- 
ter and  bring  us  the  truths  by  which  we 
live! 

For  we  live   in   the   things   which   are 

unseen   and   intangible,   which   we    have 

never    looked  upon  with   our   eyes   nor 

grasped    with   our   hands.     We   live   by 

226 


Intimations  of  the  Unseen 

means  of  houses,  food,  raiment,  warmth, 
exercise ;  we  travel,  talk,  amuse  our- 
selves ;  we  employ  a  vast  number  of  in- 
struments for  our  pleasure  and  a  host  of 
agencies  for  our  comfort.  All  these 
things  we  use  and  profit  by  ;  but  we  live 
in  and  through  none  of  them.  We  live 
in  and  through  qualities,  possessions, 
passions,  convictions,  and  activities  which 
are  intangible  and  invisible.  We  live'in 
and  through  love,  faith,  hope,  duty,  de- 
votion, sacrifice  ;  these  are  the  words 
which  compass  our  deepest  life,  and  make 
that  life  valuable  and  significant  to  us. 
The  great  struggles  of  the  race  have  been 
for  ideas  and  principles  and  sentiments ; 
the  real  bequests  of  the  past  are  certain 
moral  or  intellectual  qualities  which  in- 
stantly move  over  the  horizon  of  the 
mind  when  the  words  Jew,  Greek, 
Roman,  are  mentioned  in  our  hearing. 
It  is  one  of  the  divine  mysteries  of  man's 
life  in  this  world  that,  while  he  is  always 
dealing  with  material  things,  struggling 
for  them,  storing  them  up,  and  counting 
227 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

himself  rich  or  poor  as  he  increases  or 
diminishes  them,  he  is  ready  at  any  mo- 
ment to  hold  them  as  dust  in  the  balances 
if  the  things  he  carries  in  his  heart  are  in 
peril.  He  will  open  the  dikes  and  de- 
stroy the  country  he  has  worked  for 
centuries  to  create  rather  than  suffer  her 
enemies  to  possess  her ;  he  will  sacrifice 
everything  he  has  accumulated  for  the 
love  of  wife  or  child.  Immersed  in 
materialism,  man  is  always  at  heart  an 
idealist ;  putting  his  strength  into  the 
mastery  and  acquisition  of  things,  he  is 
always  finding  his  life  in  ideas,  emotions, 
convictions.  He  works  with  the  material, 
but  he  lives  in  the  spiritual.  If  the  spir- 
itual is  withdrawn  from  him,  he  withers 
like  a  flower  from  which  the  light  has 
departed. 

If  those  with  whom  we  live  under  the 
same  roof  are  invisible,  and  the  things 
which  hold  and  sway  us,  as  the  moon 
controls  the  tides,  are  intangible,  is  it 
strange  that  God  is  not  within  the  grasp 
of  the  hand,  nor  the  realm  of  those  who 
228 


Intimations  of  the  Unseen 

have  laid  aside  the  garments  we  once 
knew  within  the  range  of  the  eye  ?  We 
pass  through  a  room  which  is  tenantless, 
but  there  is  a  flower  in  a  vase,  and 
straightway  we  know  that  one  has  been 
there.  We  go  alone  into  a  house,  and 
immediately  an  unseen  person  stands 
beside  us,  evoked  in  memory  by  a  thou- 
sand touches  of  the  hand,  a  host  of  small, 
inanimate  things  which,  through  the  dis- 
closure of  a  selective  principle,  fill  the 
house  with  manifold  suggestions  of  an 
invisible  personality.  So  to-day  at 
Bethlehem  and  the  Mount  of  Olives  a 
figure  stands  beside  the  traveller  whose 
hands  no  human  hand  has  touched  these 
many  centuries ;  and  in  the  vast  uni- 
verse which  God  made  and  through 
which  he  has  passed,  there  are  every- 
where intimations  of  his  presence, 
evidences  of  his  care.  We  do  not 
see  him  any  more  clearly  than  we 
see  ourselves;  but  because  he  lives 
we  live  and  because  we  live  he  must 
live. 

229 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

"  What  Nature  for  her  poets  hides, 
'Tis  wiser  to  divine  than  clutch. 

The  bird  I  list  hath  never  come 
Within  the  scope  of  mortal  ear; 

My  prying  step  would  make  him  dumb. 
And  the  fair  tree,  his  shelter,  sear. 

Behind  the  hill,  behind  the  sky. 

Behind  my  inmost  thought,  he  sings; 

No  feet  avail  ;   to  hear  it  nigh 

The  song  itself  must  lend  the  wings. 

Sing  on,  sweet  bird  close  hid,  and  raise 
Those  angel  stairways  in  my  brain 

That  climb  from  these  low-vaulted  clays 
To  spacious  sunshines  far  from  pain." 


"  Long  I  followed  happy  guides, 
I  could  never  reach  their  sides. 
.    .    .   No  speed  of  mine  avails 
To  hunt  upon  their  shining  trails. 
On  and  away,  their  hasting  feet 
Make  the  morning  proud  and  sweet ; 
Flowers  they  strew  — I  catch  the  scent ; 
Or  tone  of  silver  instrument 
Leaves  on  the  wind  melodious  trace  ; 
Yet  I  could  never  see  their  face." 


230 


?\ 


9-  ^ 


Chapter  XXXI 

Character  and  Fate 

THERE  has  always  been  a  passion- 
ate protest  in  the  heart  of  the  race 
against  that  element  in  life  which  men 
call  fate ;  the  play  upon  unprotected  na- 
tures of  those  events,  accidents,  calamities, 
which  are  beyond  human  control.  These 
arbitrary  happenings  are  often  tragic  in 
their  consequences ;  they  often  seem 
wholly  irrational ;  they  have  at  times  a 
touch  of  brutal  irony.  In  many  cases 
one  is  tempted  to  personify  fate  as  a  ma- 
lignant spirit,  studiously  and  with  mali- 
cious cunning  seeking  ways  of  wounding, 
stinging,  bruising,  and  poisoning  the 
most  sensitive  souls.  There  have  been 
human  careers  so  completely  distorted 
and  thwarted  that  it  has  seemed  as  if 
the  gods  were  jealous  of  men,  and  anx- 
231 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

ious  to  rob  the  great  rewards  of  their 
sweetness  and  the  noblest  achievements 
of  their  fruit.  So  often  are  the  prizes 
snatched  from  the  strong  hand  that  had 
grasped  them  that  the  Greek  poets  could 
not  withdraw  their  gaze  from  that  irony 
which  at  times  appears  to  make  human 
life  the  mere  sport  of  the  higher  powers. 
The  gods  seemed  to  be  mocking  men  by 
holding  out  glittering  gifts  and  then  sud- 
denly snatching  them  away.  And  this 
play  of  what  appears  to  be  blind  force 
still  has  its  way  in  the  world.  The 
noblest  cathedral  is  at  the  mercy  of  the 
earthquake ;  the  divinest  picture  or  poem 
may  be  turned  to  ashes  in  a  brief  quarter 
of  an  hour ;  the  misplacing  of  a  switch 
may  wreck  the  most  commanding  intel- 
lect ;  a  moment's  inattention  may  break 
the  happiest  circle  and  cloud  the  fairest 
sky. 

The  conditions  under  which  men  live 
have  remained  unchanged  except  as  hu- 
man   foresight   and   skill    have    changed 
them ;  but  in  that  simple  statement  lies 
232 


Character  and  Fate 

an  immense  change  of  point  of  view. 
There  are  still  mysteries  in  the  ordering 
of  the  world  which  have  not  been  solved 
and  probably  are  insoluble  in  this  stage 
of  development ;  but  we  have  discovered 
that  nature  is  our  friend  and  teacher  in 
the  exact  degree  in  which  we  learn  her 
ways  and  co-operate  with  her.  The  area 
of  what  once  appeared  to  be  mere  blind 
interferences  with  human  activity  and  hap- 
piness steadily  contracts  ;  the  area  of  be- 
neficent and  helpful  relationship  steadily 
widens.  Men  are  now  safe  where  they 
were  once  in  peril ;  they  are  now  masters 
where  they  were  once  servants.  Through 
what  seemed  the  play  of  mere  physical 
force  there  now  shines  the  light  of  that 
great  movement  upward  which  we  call 
development ;  that  sublime  conception 
which,  as  one  of  the  most  spiritual  think- 
ers of  our  generation  has  said,  has  come 
to  light  just  in  time  to  save  some  of  the 
finest  and  most  sensitive  spirits  from  de- 
spair. For  that  conception  not  only  in- 
volves a  progressive  order  working  in  the 
233 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

place  of  what  seemed  to  be  blind  force; 
it  involves  also  a  progressive  inclusion 
of  all  human  interests  in  a  system  vast 
as  the  universe  and  old  as  eternity,  and 
yet  mindful  of  each  soul's  welfare  and 
growth.  A  vision  of  order,  slowly  becom- 
ing clearer  as  all  things  work  together  for 
the  good  of  those  who  obey,  throws  new 
light  on  what  appeared  to  be  the  waste 
and  sheer  brutality  of  the  past ;  and  where 
we  do  not  understand,  we  can  wait ;  since 
we  may  rest  in  the  assurance  that  we  are 
not  the  victims  of  a  merciless  physical 
order  nor  the  sport  of  those  who  have 
power  but  not  righteousness,  the  willing- 
ness to  hurt  but  not  the  wish  to  heal. 

We  are  learning,  also,  that  a  very  large 
part  of  the  happenings  and  experiences 
which  once  seemed  to  come  to  men  un- 
sought are  really  invited,  and  are  only 
the  outward  and  visible  fruits  of  inward 
dispositions  and  tendencies.  Human 
responsibility  is  very  much  more  inclu- 
sive than  it  appears  to  be  at  the  first 
glance ;  and  men  are  far  more  completely 
234 


Character  and  Fate 

the  masters  of  their  fate  than  they  are 
prone  to  beheve  or  confess.  In  fact,  in 
any  searching  analysis  the  power  of  what 
we  call  fate  shrinks  to  very  small  pro- 
portions. It  is  our  habit  to  relieve  our- 
selves of  our  own  responsibility  in  small 
matters  by  invoking  the  bogy  of  bad  luck, 
and  in  large  matters  by  charging  upon  fate 
the  ill  fortune  which  we  have  brought 
upon  ourselves.  Many  men  and  women 
suffer  themselves  to  be  comforted  and 
deceived  all  their  lives  by  these  illusive 
agencies  or  specters  of  their  own  making. 
The  results  of  their  own  blindness,  care- 
lessness, lack  of  judgment,  neglect  of 
opportunities,  misleading  egotism,  are 
quietly  and  persistently  put  to  the 
charge  of  luck  or  fate ;  and  the  self- 
fashioned  sufferer  takes  another  step  in 
self-deception  by  drugging  himself  with 
that  most  enervating  of  all  forms  of  con- 
solation, self-pity.  Hosts  of  men  and 
women  go  through  their  lives  without 
once  looking  their  deeds  in  the  face  or 
seeing  themselves  with  clear  eyes.  They 
235 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

comfort  themselves  with  lies  until  they 
lose  the  power  of  sight ;  they  disown  the 
fruits  of  their  own  sowing. 

No  words  have  pierced  this  demoraliz- 
ing illusion  with  more  searching  force 
than  the  great  phrase,  "  Character  is 
destiny."  When  a  man  perceives  that 
he  is  living  in  a  world  of  absolute  moral 
order,  witnessed  alike  in  the  obediences 
and  disobediences  of  men  ;  that  what  he 
reaps  he  has  sown,  and  that  he  can  and 
will  reap  nothing  else;  that  his  career  is 
shaped  and  framed  by  his  own  will ;  that 
the  great  experiences  which  come  to  him 
for  good  or  ill,  for  misery  or  blessedness, 
do  not  pursue  him,  but  are  invited  by 
him  ;  that  a  man's  spirit  attracts  the  things 
which  are  congenial  to  it  and  rejects  those 
which  are  alien  —  when  a  man  perceives 
these  things,  he  is  in  the  way  of  honest 
living  and  of  spiritual  growth.  Until  he 
does  see  these  facts  and  accept  them,  he 
deludes  himself,  and  his  judgment  of  life 
is  worthless. 

Few  things  are  more  significant  than 
236 


Character  and  Fate 

the  slow  and  often  unconscious  building 
of  a  home  for  his  spirit  which  every  man 
carries  to  completion.  When  the  birds 
build  their  nests,  they  have  access  to  the 
same  materials,  but  what  different  selec- 
tions they  make  and  how  far  apart  their 
methods  are  !  Every  one  who  comes  into 
life  has  access  to  substantially  the  same 
material ;  but  each  selects  that  wl 
belongs  to  him.  By  instinct  or  by  Intel 
ligence  he  builds  his  home  with  unerring 
adaptation  to  the  needs  and  quality  of 
his  nature.  To  the  pure  all  things  arc 
pure ;  to  the  impure  all  things  are  im- 
pure. The  unselfish  construct  a  beauti- 
ful order  of  service  and  helpfulness  about 
them ;  the  selfish  make  their  own  places. 
Honour  and  confidence  and  rectitude  are 
in  the  air  when  the  man  of  sensitive  integ- 
rity appears ;  suspicion,  mistrust,  and 
doubt  pervade  the  place  where  the  man 
without  character  abides.  Clean  and 
comforting  thoughts  fly  to  the  pure  in 
heart ;  debasing  fancies  gather  like  foul 
birds  around  the  man  whose  imagination 
237 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

is  a  home  of  corruption.  If  we  look 
deeply,  a  wonderful  fitness  reveals  itself 
between  those  we  know  well  and  their 
several  fortunes.  Calamity  may  bear 
heavily  upon  them,  but  the  moral  world 
they  construct  for  themselves  out  of  the 
substance  of  their  own  natures  is  inde- 
structible. Life  is  august  and  beautiful 
or  squalid  and  mean  as  we  interpret  and 

Sfiree  it ;  the  materials  are  in  all  men's 
hands,  and  the  selection  and  structure 
inevitably    and     infallibly    disclose     the 

l^  character  of  the  builder.  As  a  beauti- 
fuf*woman  furnishes  her  home  until  it 
becomes  an  externalization  of  her  own 
ideals  and  qualities,  and  then  fills  it  with 
the  charm  and  sweetness  of  her  own  per- 
sonality until  it  becomes  a  material  ex- 
pression of  her  own  nature,  so  do  we  all 
silently,  and  for  the  most  part  uncon- 
sciously, form  spiritual  environments  and 
fashion  the  world  in  which  we  live. 

There  are  few  sublimer  promises  in  the 
Bible  than  that  which  the  words,  "  Light 
is  sown   for  the  righteous,"   convey  but 
238 


Character  and  Fate 

cannot  contain.  This  sublime  phrase 
points  the  way  to  that  complete  freedom 
which  the  human  spirit  craves  ;  that  final 
emancipation  from  the  forces  which  it 
does  not  choose  and  cannot  control, 
which  marks  the  full  maturity  of  spiritual 
development.  It  promises  the  gradual 
supremacy  of  the  soul  over  all  accidents, 
happenings,  forces,  and  materials  ;  its  final 
emancipation  from  all  servitude.  As  life 
goes  on,  fate  grows  less  and  less,  charac- 
ter grows  more  and  more  ;  the  fields 
become  more  completely  our  own,  and 
yield  nothing  which  we  have  not  sown  ; 
the  correspondence  between  our  spirits 
and  our  fortunes  becomes  more  complete, 
until  fate  is  conquered  by  and  merged 
into  character.  In  the  long  run  a  man 
becomes  what  he  purposes,  and  gains  for 
himself  what  he  really  desires.  We  not 
only  fashion  our  own  lives,  but,  in  a  very 
true  sense,  as  Omar  Khayyam  intimates, 
we  make  heaven  or  hell  for  ourselves. 
It  is  idle  to  talk  about  luck,  fortune,  or 
fate  ;  these  words  survive  from  the  child- 
239 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

hood  of  the  race  ;  -^  they  have  historical 
interest,  but  they  have  no  moral  value 
to-day.  No  one  can  hide  behind  them 
or  bring  them  into  court  as  competent 
witnesses  on  his  behalf,  It  is  wise  to 
face  the  ultimate  truth  which  must  sooner 
or  later  confront  us  :  we  make  or  mar 
ourselves,  and  are  the  masters  of  our  own 
fates  and  fortunes. 


>40 


chapter  XXXII 

The  Pains  of  Growth 

IT  is  customary  to  speak  of  the  period 
of  youth  as  if  it  were  one  of  unal- 
loyed pleasure.  To  the  man  who  finds 
his  imagination  becoming  dull,  his  senses 
losing  their  zest,  and  the  glow  fading 
from  the  world,  the  years  when  prose  ran 
easily  into  poetry  and  the  commonplace 
was  touched  with  romance  lie  in  the  past, 
beautiful  in  the  vanishing  morning  light; 
their  sorrows  forgotten,  their  failures  con- 
cealed, and  nothing  bequeathed  to  the 
memory  save  that  which  was  fair  and 
sweet.  But  youth  has  its  clouds  no  less 
than  age,  its  sorrows  not  less  keen  than 
those  of  maturity,  its  bitterness  of  baffled 
effort,  and  its  anguish  of  repentance. 
Indeed,  it  is  a  question  whether,  to  sen- 
sitive youth  endowed  with  the  great  and 
i6  241 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

perilous  gifts  of  passion  and  imagination, 
there  is  not  more  of  suffering  and  less  of 
comfort  than  fall  to  the  lot  of  the  mature. 
There  is,  for  all  ardent  young  spirits, 
that  pain  of  undeveloped  and  undirected 
force  which  is  the  pain  of  growth. 

The  very  process  of  growth  involves 
a  certain  kind  of  suffering  from  which  no 
one  who  cares  to  live  shrinks,  but  which 
is  none  the  less  real  because  not  unmixed 
with  joy.  The  eager  traveller  is  never  at 
rest  until  the  end  of  his  journey  is  in 
sight ;  it  may  be  that  the  journey  is  far 
richer  in  interest  and  emotion  than  the 
place  in  which  it  ends,  but  no  one  whose 
wallet  is  strapped  about  his  waist  and 
whose  staff  is  in  his  hand  is  ever  content; 
there  is  always  a  feeling  of  restlessness,  a 
half-conscious  discontent,  until  travel 
ends  in  possession.  In  youth  all  things 
are  yet  to  be  achieved  ;  nothing  has  been 
done  ;  the  goals  are  far  distant;  the  sun 
is  hardly  above  the  horizon ;  the  way  is 
unknown.  There  is  the  elation  of  the 
first  setting  out,  the  freshness  of  the  early 
242 


The  Pains  of  Growth 

day,  the  beauty  of  flowers  still  sweet  with 
the  dews  and  fragrance  of  the  night,  the 
consciousness  of  unused  strength,  the 
mysterious  invitation  of  the  future ;  but 
there  are  also  the  sense  of  detachment 
from  all  the  things  which  surround  one, 
the  feeling  of  unreality  which  comes  and 
goes  and  makes  youth  at  times  all  action 
and  at  times  all  dreams,  the  uncertainty 
which  has  its  roots  in  lack  of  adjustment 
between  undeveloped  powers  and  capacity 
and  aptitude,  and  objects  and  aims  and 
methods  which  are  still  undiscovered. 

Through  this  beautiful,  elusive,  half- 
veiled  world  the  young  traveller  moves 
with  eager  feet,  uncertain  of  himself,  of 
his  future,  of  time  and  tide  and  fortune  ; 
longing  for  action  and  yet  lost  in  dreams, 
in  a  world  which  seems  to  be  as  solid  as 
rock  and  yet  which  recedes,  dissolves,  and 
forms  anew  as  he  advances.  Then  comes 
the  long  education  which  makes  him 
master  of  himself  and  of  the  world 
through  knowledge  of  his  force  and  his 
limitation  and  of  the  reality  and  the  un- 
243 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

reality  of  the  things  about  him.  His 
vision  slowly  becomes  clear,  his  arm  is 
strengthened  for  his  toil,  his  hands  are 
fitted  to  his  work;  he  knows  his  place, 
his  time,  and  his  task  ;  uncertainty  van- 
ishes and  the  landscape  lies  clear  and 
sharply  defined  about  him.  And  every 
stage  in  this  complicated  development  of 
a  personality  and  in  its  adaptation  to  its 
environment  has  been  accomplished  in 
pain  and,  at  times,  in  anguish  of  spirit. 
When  this  harmony  between  the  worker 
and  the  work  has  been  secured,  the  pain  of 
youth  ceases  ;  but  the  pain  of  growth  — 
the  pain  of  immortality  — knows  no  ces- 
sation. The  smaller  world  which  the 
senses  discern  is  explored  and,  in  a  way, 
mastered  ;  but,  blending  with  it  in  mys- 
terious unity  and  separation,  there  grows 
upon  the  vision  that  other  and  vaster 
world  in  which  the  spirit  seeks  its  home 
and  to  which  it  turns  with  increasing  pas- 
sion of  need  and  hope  as  the  years  go  by. 
The  first  adjustment,  between  the  worker 
and  the  work,  is  soon  accomplished;  the 
244 


The  Pains  of  Growth 

second  adjustment,  between  the  spirit  and 
the  ends  and  aims  and  realities  that  are 
out  of  sight  of  the  eyes  but  never  beyond 
the  vision  of  the  soul,  knows  no  com- 
pletion. The  youth  hears  all  manner  of 
enchanting  voices  as  he  goes  on  his  way  — 
voices  that  charm  his  ear  and  echo  with 
a  subtle  resonance  in  his  soul ;  the  man 
becomes  aware  more  and  more  of  the 
thinness  of  the  veil  which,  like  an  ex- 
quisite, sensitive,  magical  web  of  seasons 
and  songs  and  stars  and  occupations  and 
tasks  and  experiences,  hangs  between  him 
and  the  invisible  —  moved  at  times 
quietly  and  silently  by  the  wind  of  mor- 
tality ;  lighted  sometimes  as  if  luminous 
figures  were  stirring  behind  it ;  darkened 
sometimes  as  if  there  were  a  sudden  veil- 
ing of  the  glory  within  ;  thin  at  times 
almost  to  the  point  of  revelation,  and 
dense  at  times  as  if  it  had  become  an  im- 
penetrable wall.  In  the  life  of  the  man 
there  is  this  steady  clearing  of  the  vision  ; 
this  growing  light  in  the  uncertainty  of 
the  dawn  ;  this  deepening  consciousness 
245 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

of  the  spirit  behind  the  form,  the  truth 
behind  the  fact,  the  power  behind  the 
symbol,  the  spiritual  behind  the  material. 
This  putting  on  of  immortality  by 
mortality,  this  slow  and  silent  disclosure 
of  a  larger  world  about  the  lesser  one, 
this  finer  adjustment  of  the  soul  to  two 
worlds  which  are  never  wholly  harmoni- 
ous, is  accomplished  through  works, 
sorrows,  visions,  and  experiences  which 
are  never  free  from  pain.  The  way  of 
life  is  always  the  way  of  the  cross,  because 
the  possession  of  every  higher  perception 
involves  the  loss  of  a  lower  one,  the  gain- 
ing of  every  new  conception  of  love  the 
going  of  something  dear  and  sweet  and 
familiar,  the  forming  of  every  spiritual 
tie  the  breaking  of  an  earthly  one.  As 
we  advance  in  the  consciousness  of  spirit- 
ual realities  we  detach  ourselves  more  and 
more  from  the  things  about  us.  All 
real  living  moves  in  a  series  of  changes 
from  a  lower  to  a  higher  conception  of 
the  relation,  the  work,  or  the  possession  ; 
and  all  change  in  the  ways  and  things  we 
246 


The  Pains  of  Growth 

love  is  full  of  pain.  It  is  this  silent  but 
compelling  power  in  the  world,  steadily 
driving  us  forward,  which  evidences  the 
presence  of  divinity  in  the  ordering  of 
our  lives.  Nothing  which  comes  into 
our  hands  quite  satisfies  us;  for  noble 
possession  always  involves  spiritual  rec- 
ognition of  the  gift,  and  with  spiritual 
perception  comes  a  new  sense  of  values 
and  obligations.  Nothing  satisfies  because 
nothing  is  complete  or  finished  ;  neither 
our  capacity  for  receiving  nor  the  gift 
which  is  bestowed  upon  us.  In  the  ex- 
act degree  in  which  we  are  worthy  of  a 
great  possession  are  we  unable  to  rest  in 
it ;  there  is  that  in  it  and  in  us  which  dis- 
closes new  possibilities  of  joy,  and  there- 
fore of  service.  No  man  of  conscience 
or  imagination  can  be  content  with  his 
work,  however  men  may  praise  it,  because 
as  he  works  his  vision  of  what  he  may 
achieve  with  heart  and  skill  grows  clearer  ; 
no  man  can  be  satisfied  with  his  life,  how- 
ever rich  and  full,  because,  as  a  man's  life 
deepens  and  widens,  its  needs  grow  vaster 
247 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

and  nobler  ;  nor  can  any  man  be  satisfied 
with  the  love  he  bestows  or  receives, 
however  fortunate  his  lot,  because  the 
very  act  of  loving  increases  the  capacity 
for  loving;  and  as  love  grows  deep  and 
tender,  it  seeks,  by  the  law  of  its  nature, 
higher  unity  of  spirit  with  spirit  and  the 
opportunity  of  more  complete  sacrifice 
and  surrender.  So  the  immortal  within 
grows  by  all  contacts  with  the  mortal,  and 
every  relation,  work,  duty,  and  pleasure 
has  that  within  it  which  will  not  let  us 
rest  either  in  attainment  or  possession. 

Through  this  necessity,  hidden  in  the 
heart  of  all  true  relations  and  wholesome 
experiences,  to  find  realization  in  terms 
of  the  spirit  a  constant  purification  is 
effected.  Love  begins  in  passion,  and 
ends  in  sacrifice  and  spiritual  surrender ; 
work  begins  in  ambition,  and  ends  in  ser- 
vice ;  the  traveller  sets  out  to  make  a  way 
for  himself  and  serve  his  own  ends,  and 
becomes  a  humble  seeker  after  the  ways 
of  duty  and  the  will  of  God.  The  his- 
tory of  humanity  is  touched  and  turned 


The  Pains  of  Growth 

to  light  through  all  its  tortuous  and  sor- 
rowful course  by  this  silent  transforma- 
tion of  the  mortal  desire  into  the  immortal 
achievement.  The  youth  hears  the  voice 
of  fame  and  presses  toward  it  with  eager 
feet ;  the  man  struggles  with  his  own 
sluggish  will,  his  inert  fingers,  his  un- 
certain visions,  until  the  applause  of  his 
fellows  is  only  faintly  heard  and  he  cares 
supremely  to  do  his  work  with  the  skill 
of  perfect  insight  and  perfect  craftsman- 
ship harmonized  in  indissoluble  union. 
It  is  a  great  price  which  he  pays  for  the 
education  which  makes  him  an  artist;  for 
all  education  costs  in  exact  proportion  to 
the  dignity  and  significance  of  the  work 
which  it  fits  a  man  to  do.  And  all  edu- 
cation is,  in  a  true  sense,  painful.  It  is 
the  travail  of  the  spirit  through  which  a 
finer  life  is  being  born  ;  and  since,  for 
those  who  live  truly  and  deeply,  life  is 
always  growing  in  depth  and  power  and 
reality  and  vision,  the  pangs  of  birth  are 
never  absent ;  for  true  living  is  being 
born  daily  into  newness  of  life. 
249 


Chapter  XXXIII 

The  Sorrow  of  Knowledge 

THOSE  who  do  not  feel  the  weight 
of  the  problem  of  life  as  it  presents 
itself  to  the  modern  mind,  and  who  have 
no  sympathy  with  those  who  confess  that 
they  cannot  solve  it,  have  not  faced  the 
facts.  They  must  be  very  light-minded 
or  very  light-hearted  ;  and,  in  either  case, 
their  attitude  does  not  add  to  the  evi- 
dence of  a  divine  order  working  through 
the  disorder  of  human  affairs.  Very  little 
value  attaches  to  the  opinion  of  the  man 
who  has  never  resolutely  closed  with  a 
difficult  problem  in  an  honest  endeavour 
to  know  what  is  at  its  heart.  To  com- 
mand the  attention  of  serious  students  the 
man  who  attempts  to  discuss  any  phase 
of  social  and  industrial  life  must  know 
it  at  first  hand ;  the  easy-going  temper 
250 


The  Sorrow  of  Knowledge 

which  evades  the  deeper  difficulties  and 
offers  its  readily  discovered  remedies,  ex- 
cites a  kind  of  repulsion  among  those 
who  want  to  know  the  worst  in  order  to 
do  the  best.  To  be  of  service  to  one's 
time,  one  must  live  in  it  on  intimate 
terms  ;  must  know  its  sources  of  doubt 
and  feel  the  currents  of  questioning  and 
despair  which  flow  through  it.  To  rise 
easily  above  all  its  perplexities  would  be 
to  escape  its  deepest  experience,  to  miss 
its  special  education,  and  to  lose  the  power 
of  helping  it.  If  the  greatest  spirit  of  the 
sixteenth  century  were  to  return  to  us,  he 
could  not  help  us  until  he  had  put  our 
cup  of  bitterness  to  his  lips  and  drained  it. 
An  angel  could  not  aid  men  unless  he  were 
willing  to  be  a  man.  The  Hebrews,  turn- 
ing their  passionate  longing  for  righteous- 
ness into  Messianic  prophecy,  and  their 
passionate  consciousness  of  sin  into 
equally  passionate  hope  of  the  coming 
of  a  saviour,  thought  that  their  problems 
would  be  solved  when  God  appeared 
among  them.  When  He  came,  they 
251 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

failed  to  recognize  Him  ;  because,  in 
order  to  help  men,  God  had  to  become 
a  man  ;  in  order  to  save  men  from  their 
sins,  He  had  to  feel  the  full  force  of  their 
temptations.  To  the  most  sincere  minds 
the  secret  of  the  power  of  Christ's  victo- 
rious faith  is  found  in  his  complete  knowl- 
edge of  the  black  facts  of  life.  These 
facts  it  was  his  special  mission  to  know ; 
the  outcast  were  his  companions ;  the 
poor  were  his  friends  ;  the  sick  and  sor- 
rowful were  the  objects  of  his  constant 
care.  He  passed  by  the  respectable 
world,  and  sought  the  impure,  the  un- 
righteous, the  vile,  and  the  lost.  There 
was  no  depth  of  human  iniquity  or  suf- 
fering into  which  he  did  not  look  with 
unflinching  eyes ;  there  was  no  injustice 
or  brutal  neglect  of  which  he  was  igno- 
rant ;  there  was  no  agony  of  experience 
through  which,  in  fact  or  in  fellowship, 
he  did  not  pass. 

It  is  this  thoroughness  of  knowledge 
which   lays  the  basis  for  Christ's  unique 
authority  in  dealing  with  the  problem  of 
252 


The  Sorrow  of  Knowledge 

life.  Theologians  have  had  much  to  say 
about  the  knowledge  of  evil,  but  they 
give  the  impression  of  dealing  with  ideas 
rather  than  with  breaking  hearts  and  shat- 
tered lives.  Men  must  have  a  philosophy 
of  Hving,  but  it  must  be  rooted  deep  in 
the  facts  of  human  experience.  Christ 
did  not  offer  a  series  of  generaHzations ; 
he  passed  through  a  typical  and  searching 
experience,  unique  in  its  sympathy  with 
misery,  its  passionate  care  for  men  and 
women  in  their  vilest  conditions,  its  soli- 
tariness of  spirit,  its  isolation,  and  its 
physical  suffering ;  and  out  of  the  depths 
of  this  tremendous,  first-hand  wrestling 
with  the  most  awful  forces  and  facts  he 
affirmed  the  reality  of  the  soul,  the 
beauty  of  life,  the  certainty  of  immor- 
tality. Buddha,  according  to  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  traditions  which  the  race 
has  inherited,  put  aside  the  pleasures  of 
life  in  order  that  he  might  understand 
and  share  its  sorrows ;  but  the  tide  of 
those  sorrows  was  so  overwhelming  that 
he  found  no  solution  save  in  renunciation 
253 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

of  a  kind  which  was  a  virtual  confession 
of  defeat.     "  Cease   to   suffer,"    he  said, 
"  by  destroying  those   longings,  desires, 
instincts,  and  aspirations  in  the  denial  of 
which  suffering  has  its  roots."     "  Do  not 
strive  to  escape  suffering,"  said   Christ, 
"  because  through  suffering  your  natures 
find  their  highest  development,  and  your 
desires  their  truest  fulfilment."     He  did 
not  evade  the  chances  of  sorrow  ;  he  rather 
increased  them.      Instead  of  urging  men 
to   love    less,   and    therefore   reduce   the 
chances   of  rejection    or   loss,    he   urged 
them  to  love  more.     He  set  the  divine 
example  of  committing  the  whole  soul  to 
the  issue  of  life;  of  investing  one's  entire 
spiritual   fortune  in  the   fortunes   of  the 
race.      His  solution  was  not  to  withdraw 
from  the  struggle,  but  to  plunge  into  the 
very  heart  of  it ;   not  to   take  ourselves 
out  of  the  path  of  sorrow,  but  to  face  it 
with  a  higher  courage. 

Christ  makes  an  appeal  to  modern  men, 
therefore,    which    has    the    weight    of  a 
supreme  knowledge  of  the  things  which 
254 


The  Sorrow  of  Knowledge 

perplex  and  harass  them,  and  of  a  solu- 
tion which  is  reached,  not  aside  from,  but 
through,  these  uncertainties  and  perplexi- 
ties. The  reality  of  these  dark  and  almost 
crushing  facts  in  human  life  was  felt  most 
keenly  by  the  divinest  soul  which  has 
ever  appeared  in  the  form  of  man ;  and 
it  is  safe  to  say,  therefore,  that  the  depth 
of  a  man's  insight  into  the  questions 
which  torture  men,  and  the  solidity  of 
his  conclusions  regarding  these  questions, 
must  depend  largely  upon  the  keenness 
with  which  he  feels  the  force  of  the  black- 
est facts  with  which  he  attempts  to  deal. 

"In  Memoriam  "  has  had  an  influence 
upon  sensitive  minds  of  the  highest  kind 
because  its  music  is  so  full  of  minor 
chords.  The  breadth  of  that  noble  sweep 
of  the  harp  of  life  was  possible  only  to  a 
singerwho  had  passed  through  the  shadow 
of  death  and  found  sunlight  beyond  it. 
A  lesser  poet  would  have  found  an  easier 
melody  at  hand ;  but  he  who  was  to  sing 
of  immortality  so  as  to  make  men's  hearts 
burn  must  first  walk  with  death.  The 
255 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

stream  of  hope  rises  very  slowly  in  the 
poet's  soul ;  it  runs  through  many  shal- 
lows and  breaks  against  many  obstacles  ; 
it  is  often  darkened  by  the  shadows  of 
clouds ;  it  broadens  at  times  into  wide, 
sluggish  pools,  and  seems  to  have  lost  all 
movement ;  when  at  last  it  flows  seaward 
with  a  deep,  harmonious  sweep,  it  has 
touched  all  dark  and  dangerous  places, 
passed  all  debris  and  wreckage  of  storm 
and  time,  and  found  freedom  and  joy  out 
of  all  the  darkness  and  vicissitude  of  its 
long  and  tortuous  course.  Browning's 
note  is  more  jubilant ;  it  has  the  resonance 
of  the  bugle  in  its  ringing  tones  ;  but 
before  the  vision  of  the  Christ  breaks  on 
the  young  David  he  has  become  tense 
with  the  anguish  of  spiritual  struggle  ;  he 
has  faced  the  awful  gloom  of  Saul  with 
a  courage  drawn  from  all  sweet  sources 
of  life  —  the  silence  of  woods,  the  shining 
of  waters,  the  songs  of  birds,  the  stir  of 
the  reapers.  Before  his  song  flashes  into 
light  it  has  traversed  the  breadth  of  man's 
life.  The  sublime  elation  of  "  Prospice  " 
256 


The  Sorrow  of  Knowledge 

gets  its  most  human  note  from  the  bold 
defiance  of  the  foe  standing  in  the  last 
pass ;  there  is  no  evasion,  no  golden  mist 
obscuring  the  awful  visage,  no  easy  silence, 
but  the  clear  fact,  the  ring  of  steel  on 
steel,  the  supreme  peril.  The  heaven 
which  lies  beyond  such  an  achievement 
is  not  incredible. 

It  is  always  idle  to  condemn  the  spirit 
of  an  age  in  unqualified  terms.  There 
are  good  and  evil  things  in  every  age  ; 
and  those  who  find  in  any  past  age  a 
complete  correspondence  between  ideals 
of  righteousness  and  human  institutions 
reveal  a  lack  of  historical  perspective. 
The  spirit  of  the  age  is  never  to  be  lightly 
antagonized,  however  vigorously  some  of 
its  manifestations  are  to  be  antagonized. 
It  is  very  difficult,  in  the  first  place,  to 
ascertain,  at  any  given  place  or  time,  the 
precise  nature  of  the  spirit  of  an  age. 
That  spirit  has  as  many  aspects  as  the 
spirit  of  man  ;  and  the  spirit  of  man  is 
never  easily  defined.  The  wise  attitude 
towards  the  spirit  of  the  age  is  never  one 
17  257 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

of  antagonism  ;  it  is  always  one  of  patient 
endeavour  to  discover  and  to  learn.  Out 
of  the  depths  of  its  experience  some  truth 
rises  into  the  consciousness  of  each  age  ; 
and  the  recognition  of  that  truth  is,  per- 
haps, the  greatest  achievement  of  the  age 
and  its  most  lasting  contribution  to  the 
life  of  man.  This  age  has  not,  in  all 
probability,  borne  heavier  burdens  or 
passed  through  deeper  experiences  than 
other  ages.  Those  who  have  the  right 
to  speak  on  this  subject  are  very  few  in 
comparison  with  those  who  assume  the 
function  of  speaking ;  for  while  many 
make  the  most  comprehensive  statements, 
there  are  only  a  few  whose  knowledge  of 
social  and  spiritual  conditions  is  inclusive 
enough  to  furnish  the  materials  for  an 
intelligent  opinion.  There  is  reason  to 
believe,  however,  that  more  men  and 
women  are  comfortably  housed,  fed,  and 
clothed  to-day  than  at  any  earlier  period 
in  the  history  of  the  world.  But  into 
this  better  world  there  has  come  for  the 
first  time  adequate  knowledge  of  the  con- 
258 


The  Sorrow  of  Knowledge 

ditions  of  the  race  everywhere  ;  and  with 
this  fuller  knowledge  has  come  a  new 
consciousness  of  the  sorrows  of  life. 
Rapidity  and  completeness  of  commu- 
nication have  made  the  world  one  great 
community,  and  with  this  world-commu- 
nity has  come  a  world-consciousness  of 
sin,  sorrow,  and  burden-bearing.  Men 
have  never  been  blind  to  the  tragic  facts 
of  life  ;  but  they  never  before  have  known 
them  so  widely,  so  intimately ;  and  out 
of  this  knowledge  there  has  come,  as  was 
inevitable,  a  great  depression.  Some- 
thing like  despair  has  overtaken  many  of 
the  most  sensitive  men  and  women ;  and 
they  cry  out  passionately,  not  against 
their  own  fates,  but  against  the  fate  of  the 
race.  There  are  times  when  the  knowl- 
edge seems  too  great  and  terrible  to  be 
borne  ;  when,  out  of  the  depths  of  life, 
mists  and  darkness  rise  and  cover  the 
face  of  the  sky.  Men  cry  out,  not  In 
the  insolence  of  skepticism,  but  in  agony 
of  spirit,  because  of  the  sorrows  which 
they  can  neither  understand  nor  lighten. 
259 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

To  rail  ^.gainst  the  doubt  which  has  its 
rise  in  this  knov/Iedge  is  to  betray  fatal 
incapacity  to  enter  into  that  experience 
through  which  the  race  is  being  educated. 
The  man  who  cries  out  against  God 
because  the  sorrows  of  his  fellows  are 
breaking  his  heart  is  very  much  nearer 
God  than  he  upon  whom  no  shadow  of 
those  sorrows  falls.  It  must  surely  be 
easier  to  forgive  impatience  with  God's 
ways  of  dealing  with  those  who  suffer 
than  indifference  to  their  sufferings.  He 
who  carries  the  sorrows  of  the  race  in  his 
heart  has  entered  into  one  great  phase  of 
Christ's  experience :  he  is  seeing  with 
clear  eyes  all  that  is  in  life.  If  our  age 
has  any  supreme  claim  upon  our  rev- 
erence, it  is  to  be  found  in  its  sorrow 
in  the  sorrows  of  its  children.  This  is 
the  Christ-spirit.  There  has  been  cross- 
bearing  in  every  age,  but  never  before 
have  so  many  men  and  women  shared 
Christ's  consciousness  of  the  misery  of 
the  world  and  walked  with  Christ  along 
the  way  of  the  cross.  The  trouble  with 
260 


The  Sorrow  of  Knowledge 

the  pessimist  is  not  his  clear  perception 
of  evil  conditions,  but  his  lack  of  deeper 
insight  and  higher  courage  in  dealing  with 
them.  Without  this  deeper  insight  and 
higher  courage  clear  and  honest  percep- 
tion of  facts  stops  short  both  of  compre- 
hension and  of  helpfulness.  The  spirit 
of  the  age  has  the  great  quality  of  hon- 
esty ;  it  needs  the  greater  quality  of 
spiritual  insight ;  for  without  insight 
knowledge  brings  a  crushing  weight  of 
sorrow  upon  the  spirit.  It  is  much, 
however,  to  face  the  facts  ;  it  is  the  first 
step  in  the  spiritual  reaction  against  their 
tyranny. 


261 


Chapter  XXXIV 

Some  Sources  of  Pessimism 

SO  far  as  the  depression  which  has 
affected  so  many  people  in  recent 
years  and  entered  so  deeply  into  art  has 
its  origin  in  a  clearer  knowledge  of  the 
conditions  of  life  the  world  over,  and  a 
more  adequate  perception  of  the  diffi- 
culties involved  in  the  problems  which 
confront  society,  it  is  neither  to  be  con- 
demned nor  regretted.  The  first  shock 
of  apprehension  which  comes  with  a  sud- 
den sense  of  the  presence  of  a  great  peril 
often  sets  the  will  and  steels  the  nerves. 
Without  that  shock  the  highest  kind  of 
courage  is  impossible,  for  the  highest 
courage  is  not  instinctive,  but  rational  ; 
it  measures  the  full  force  of  the  danger, 
and  summons  all  the  resources  of  char- 
acter to  meet  it.  The  feeling  of  some- 
262 


Some  Sources  of  Pessimism 

thing  like  despair  which  often  overtakes 
the  most  sincere  lovers  of  their  kind 
when  they  first  take  hold  of  social  and 
industrial  problems,  and  become  aware  of 
their  extraordinary  complexity  and  diffi- 
culty, is  rational  and  wholesome ;  it  is 
part  of  the  education  which  the  true 
helper  of  his  kind  must  receive  before  he 
is  fitted  to  do  his  work. 

There  is,  however,  a  vast  amount  of 
depression  which  has  other  sources,  and 
which  is  the  result  of  disease.  Those 
who  read  modern  books  and  know  mod- 
ern art  have  passed  through  a  wave  of 
intense  depression  during  the  last  two 
decades.  It  has  seemed  at  times,  to  the 
reader  of  current  literature,  as  if  all  the 
old  sanctions  had  lost  their  authority, 
the  old  inspirations  spent  their  force,  and 
the  old  hopes  dissolved  in  a  mist  of  sad- 
ness. A  dense  fog  has  hung  over  many  of 
the  makers  of  art  so  long  that  one  begins 
to  ask  if  there  ever  were  clear  skies  and 
shining  stars.  In  this  atmosphere  it 
seems  as  if  all  men  were  vile,  all  women 
263 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

corrupters,  all  life  a  disease.  The  spirit 
is  everywhere  the  creature  of  inflexible 
laws  or  of  brutal  chance  ;  the  child  grows 
into  inevitable  vice  as  he  grows  into 
strength ;  the  tenderest  heart  is  doomed 
to  be  broken  by  the  transmitted  curse  of 
corrupted  blood  ;  those  who  struggle  in 
the  meshes  of  fate  bruise  themselves  with- 
out gain  ;  all  aspiration  and  self-sacrifice 
and  toil  are  met  with  the  derisive  irony 
of  an  order  of  existence  which  remorse- 
lessly consumes  all  nobleness  and  studi- 
ously stimulates  all  baseness.  And  when 
one  escapes  out  of  this  dense  fog  of  pes- 
simism, he  often  finds  himself  in  a  world 
which,  if  less  brutally  lustful  and  sordid, 
is  full  of  weariness  and  disease  and  mel- 
ancholy. A  great  many  modern  artists 
have  put  forth  their  full  strength  in  deal- 
ing with  their  materials  only  to  make  the 
futility  of  all  art  and  achievement  more 
clear.  This  interpretation  of  life  as  brutal 
chaos,  moral  accident,  or  rigid  necessity 
has  been  made  so  often,  with  so  much 
force,  in  forms  of  such  beauty,  that  many 
264 


Some  Sources  of  Pessimism 

men  have  come  to  accept  it  as  a  matter 
of  course.  They  have  Hved  so  long  in 
the  atmosphere  of  the  hospital  that  they 
have  come  to  accept  the  hospital  as  the 
normal  home  of  humanity,  instead  of 
being  a  temporary  refuge  for  a  very 
small  number  of  unfortunate  or  disabled 
people.  Men  and  women  of  receptive 
temper  succumb  to  this  atmosphere  of 
depression  without  even  making  the 
effort  to  get  out-of-doors  and  to  breathe 
the  air  of  the  great  open  world.  They 
have  grown  into  such  familiarity  with 
mental  and  moral  insanity,  they  have 
lived  so  habitually  with  the  diseased  and 
the  deformed,  that  they  have  come  to 
regard  sickness  as  health  and  insanity  as 
a  normal  condition. 

Now,  art  carries  with  it  a  certain  au- 
thority ;  beautiful  and  sincere  work  never 
fails  to  affect  the  imagination ;  but  art, 
being  the  product  of  men,  reflects  tem- 
perament, intellect,  and  character,  and  is 
quite  as  likely  to  misunderstand  and  mis- 
represent life  as  are  the  men  who  fashion 
265 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

it.  A  brilliant  talker  charms  us  by  the 
freshness  and  variety  of  his  tones,  his 
impressions,  his  conclusions ;  but  if  we 
perceive  that  his  knowledge  of  life  is 
partial  and  his  view  of  life  distorted,  we 
still  get  a  certain  pleasure  from  him,  but 
we  refuse  to  accept  his  views  or  to  act 
upon  his  statements.  There  is  a  great 
deal  of  art  the  beauty  of  which  we  recog- 
nize and  feel,  but  which  ought  not  to 
influence  us,  because  we  perceive  its  in- 
adequacy as  an  interpretation.  We  read 
Dean  Swift's  "  Houyhnhnms  "  with  keen 
appreciation  of  its  merciless  satire,  but  we 
do  not  accept  its  conclusions  that  all  men 
are  beasts.  We  know  that  the  picture  is 
untrue,  and  we  remember  that  Swift  died 
mad.  We  enjoy  keenly  the  exquisite 
workmanship  of  Guy  de  Maupassant,  but 
we  come  very  soon  to  recognize  that  he 
is  neither  a  wide  nor  a  wholesome  ob- 
server ;  we  are  aware  from  our  first  ac- 
quaintance with  him  that  there  is  a  lui;liing 
element  of  disease  which  is  presently  to 
wreck  his  superb  intellect.  We  do  not 
266 


Some  Sources  of  Pessimism 

fail  to  recognize  the  power  of  Huysman's 
"  A  Rebours  "  and  D'Annunzio's  "  Tri- 
umph of  Death,"  but  if  we  keep  our 
sanity  we  are  aware  that  in  these  artistic 
works  we  are  in  a  world  as  unreal  as  that 
into  which  Poe  takes  us  in  "  The  Fall 
of  the  House  of  Usher."  The  tremen- 
dous personal  force  which  expressed  itself 
in  the  "  Bete  Humaine  "  may  be  recog- 
nized without  accepting  the  interpretation 
of  life  which  it  presents.  Zola  has  been, 
in  fact,  one  of  the  greatest  romancers  of 
the  time  ;  a  reporter  of  great  power,  but 
eminently  untrustworthy  save  in  a  very 
limited  field. 

Society  passes  through  periods  of  de- 
pression precisely  as  individuals  pass 
through  such  periods,  and  the  cause  is 
usually  to  be  found  in  some  kind  of  ex- 
haustion. When  a  generation  spends  its 
vitality  prodigally  in  emotion,  work,  or 
pleasure,  it  draws  upon  the  strength  of 
the  succeeding  generation,  and  a  reaction 
of  lassitude  or  indifference  follows.  After 
two  centuries  of  intense  inward  experience 
267 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

and  outward  activity  like  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth,  it  was  inevitable  that 
the  eighteenth  century  should  find  Eng- 
land in  a  prosaic  mood  and  a  somewhat 
cynical  temper.  The  fathers  had  burned 
out  the  vitality  of  the  children.  The 
same  result  follows  physical  excesses. 
The  extent  of  invalidism  in  England  in 
the  generation  which  succeeded  the  plea- 
sure-living men  and  women  of  the  period 
of  the  Restoration  has  often  been  noted. 
The  fathers  had  eaten  grapes  which  were 
sweet  to  their  taste,  but  bitter  in  the 
mouths  of  their  children.  Those  who 
live  in  such  a  period  of  depression  do 
not  suspect  that  anything  is  wrong  with 
their  observation  of  the  world  in  which 
they  find  themselves  ;  they  are  uncon- 
scious of  their  own  lack  of  clear  vision  ; 
they  do  not  recognize  the  fact  that  the 
sensitive  and  delicate  organs  of  obser- 
vation with  which  men  are  endowed  are 
very  seriously  affected  by  general  moral, 
conditions.  There  are  whole  generations 
whose  experience  is  interesting  and  val- 
268 


Some  Sources  of  Pessimism 

uable,  but  whose  views  of  life  are  prac- 
tically worthless  ;  they  looked  through 
glasses  so  blurred  and  out  of  focus  that 
everything  was  distorted  and  out  of  line. 
Dr.  Johnson  has  somewhere  said  that  a 
sick  man  is  a  rascal,  or  that  every  man  is 
a  rascal  when  he  is  sick.  It  is  certain 
that  health  is  the  basis  of  all  trustworthy 
observation  of  life,  and  of  all  sound  con- 
clusions regarding  it.  To  find  one's 
generation  overclouded  does  not  mean, 
therefore,  that  the  sky  has  fallen  ;  to  live 
among  men  who  declare  that  life  is  a 
long,  meaningless  irony  does  not  involve 
rejection  of  the  testimony  of  the  great 
sane  spirits  who  have  affirmed  the  noble 
possibilities  of  man's  nature  and  the 
spiritual  nobility  of  his  life.  Robert 
Browning  is  a  saner  witness  than  De 
Maupassant,  and  Tennyson  a  deeper 
observer  than  Verlaine. 

That  a  great  deal  of  current  depression 

is  mere  fashion  is  evident  to  all  who  have 

taken  the  trouble  to  observe  the  relation 

between  opinion  and  habit  of  life.     The 

269 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

easy,  conventional  talk  about  the  general 
misery  from  a  man  who  is  making  the 
most  of  the  pleasures  of  life  means  noth- 
ing ;  it  is  merely  a  mode  of  speech.  No 
sensitive,  sincere  spirit  could  enjoy  a  life 
which  was  all  bitterness  to  its  fellows;  if 
a  man  would  impress  us  with  the  futility 
and  tragedy  of  things,  let  him  show  some 
sense  of  the  awful  significance  of  such  a 
philosophy  to  the  race.  So  long  as  he 
eats,  drinks,  and  is  merry,  he  may  be 
credited  with  opinions,  but  not  with  con- 
victions. There  are  fashions  in  thought 
and  speech,  as  in  dress,  and  it  has  been 
the  fashion  of  late  years  to  take  low  views 
of  life.  Such  gregarious  conclusions  are 
not  worth  serious  consideration.  It  ought 
to  be  remembered,  also,  that  the  cause  of 
a  great  deal  of  current  pessimism  is  to  be 
found  in  evil  living.  The  man  who  is 
violating  the  laws  of  Hfe  cannot  be  ex- 
pected to  think  well  of  them.  Nor  can 
the  man  of  disordered  nerves,  diseased 
body,  and  morbid  imagination  be  expected 
to  see  with  clear  eyes  or  to  judge  with 
270 


Some  Sources  of  Pessimism 

right  judgment.  All  testimony  from  men 
of  this  class  may  be  finally  rejected  ;  they 
who  are  blind  cannot  lead.  To  these 
untrustworthy  observers  must  be  added 
two  other  classes  whose  temperaments  are 
often  very  interesting,  but  whose  views  of 
life  are  of  no  value  save  as  revelations  of 
temperament :  the  egotists  and  the  sen- 
timentalists. The  egotist  often  arrests 
our  attention  because  he  is  morbid  and 
willing  to  talk  about  himself;  and  dis- 
ease of  a  psychological  kind  is  always 
interesting.  Jean  Jacques  may  fill  us 
with  loathing  at  times,  but  we  are  so  cu- 
rious to  know  the  inner  life  that  we  are 
eager  to  look  into  the  heart  of  the  man 
who  offers  it  for  our  inspection.  The 
egotist  is  never  quite  sane,  and  his  view 
of  life  is  always  untrustworthy.  As  for 
the  sentimentalist,  he  has  no  views ;  he 
has  only  emotions. 


271 


Chapter  XXXV 

Health  and  Courage 

IN  an  age  which  doubts  the  reality  of 
the  spiritual  life,  and  so  takes  from 
men  the  supreme  hopes,  he  who  is  eager 
to  live  by  the  truth  and  not  by  current 
opinion  will  simplify  his  problem  by  ana- 
lyzing the  pessimism  in  which  he  finds 
himself.  So  far  as  depression  has  its 
source  in  a  clear  vision  of  facts,  it  will 
give  him  serious  thought ;  so  far  as  it  is 
the  product  of  physical,  mental,  or  spirit- 
ual exhaustion,  of  mere  fashion,  of  disease, 
of  evil  living,  of  egotism,  or  of  senti- 
mentalism,  he  may  dismiss  it  as  of  no 
consequence.  It  may  have  psychological 
interest  of  a  rare  kind  ;  it  may  be  full  of 
disclosures  of  temperamental  quality  and 
morbid  experience ;  but  it  is  not  a  factor 
in  the  problem  of  a  man's  relation  to  the 
272 


Health  and  Courage 

order  in  which  he  finds  himself.  It  may 
teach  him  much  regarding  the  conse- 
quences of  violating  the  laws  of  life ;  it 
can  teach  him  little  regarding  the  mean- 
ing and  value  of  life.  It  is  well  to  re- 
member that  men  sometimes  lose  their 
way  for  a  whole  generation,  and  that  art 
often  forsakes  the  line  of  sound  and 
noble  development  for  long  periods  of 
time.  It  is  never  wise  to  ignore  the 
tendencies  in  the  society  about  us,  but  it 
is  often  wise  to  resist  them.  They  may 
seem  irresistible  at  the  moment,  and  the 
sensitive  are  perplexed  and  the  impres- 
sionable swept  away  by  them  ;  but  they 
may  be  mere  eddies  on  the  surface  of  the 
stream.  The  main  current  may  be  mov- 
ing in  a  very  different  direction  ;  and  it  is 
the  main  current  which  is  significant.  A 
man  must  live  in  his  age  and  enter  deeply 
into  its  life,  but  he  must  also  be  above  it. 
"  The  Artist,"  says  Schiller,  "  it  is  true,  is 
the  son  of  his  time  ;  but  pity  him  if  he  be 
its  pupil,  or  even  its  favourite  !  Let  some 
beneficent  deity  snatch  him,  when  a  suck- 
i8  273 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

ling,  from  the  breast  of  his  mother,  and 
nurse  him  with  the  milk  of  a  better  time  ; 
that  he  may  ripen  to  a  full  stature  beneath 
a  distant  Grecian  sky.  And  having  grown 
to  manhood,  let  him  return,  a  foreign 
shape,  into  his  century ;  not,  however, 
to  delight  it  by  his  presence,  but  dread- 
ful, like  the  son  of  Agamemnon,  to 
purify  it." 

If  the  philosophy   of  pessimism  were 
true,  and  life  were  one  long  irony  — 

A  Moment's  Halt  —  a  momentary  taste 
Of  Being  from  the  Well  amid  the  Waste  — 

And  Lo  !  the  phantom  Caravan  has  reach' d 
The  Nothing  it  set  out  from  — 

the  attitude  and  spirit  of  pessimism  would 
be  essentially  ignoble.  The  brave  man 
may  see  clearly  that  his  situation  is  hope- 
less, but  he  neither  laments  nor  curses  ; 
he  sells  his  life  for  the  highest  price  he 
can  exact.  If  Fate  is  to  destroy  him. 
Fate  shall  not  succeed  easily ;  it  shall 
pay  jthe  full  price  of  a  brave  soul.  A 
great  deal  of  modern  literature  has  been 
274 


Health  and  Courage 

essentially  ignoble,  because  it  has  defiled 
life  or  cheapened  it  with  useless  outcries, 
or  vulgarized  it  by  cowardice.  It  has  de- 
graded humanity  by  selecting  the  base, 
the  unwholesome,  and  the  foul  as  repre- 
sentative and  typical.  It  was  the  weak- 
ness of  the  older  romanticist  that  he  chose 
only  the  significant,  the  striking,  and  the 
dramatic,  and,  by  excluding  the  common- 
place, gave  his  picture  a  colour  above  the 
truth.  It  has  been  the  vice  of  some 
Naturalists  that,  while  calling  themselves 
stern  truth-lovers  and  dispassionate  pho- 
tographers, they  have  simply  reversed 
this  method,  and  given  the  world  the 
results  of  a  selection  quite  as  arbitrary 
and  misleading.  By  excluding  virtue, 
aspiration,  and  the  play  of  the  noble 
qualities,  they  have  made  men  little 
better  than  beasts,  and  the  earth  a 
breeding-place  of  foulness.  There  is 
something  ferocious  in  the  treachery  to 
their  kind  which  some  writers  have  re- 
vealed  in  their  passionate  endeavour  to 
turn  marble  into  clay,  and  to  rob  men  of 
275 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

the  saving  quality  of  self-respect.  The 
appearance  of  one  pure  woman  or  of  one 
brave  man  gives  the  lie  to  these  slanders 
of  humanity,  and  brings  out  their  essen- 
tial baseness.  If  our  fortunes  were  at 
their  lowest,  we  should  still  be  human, 
and  the  instincts  of  humanity  ought  to 
keep  us  from  defaming  our  race.  If  we 
were  doomed  to  die,  we  ought  to  die  like 
gentlemen  and  not  like  ruffians. 

If  conditions  were  as  hopeless  as  the 
pessimists  sometimes  paint  them,  we 
should  still  have  our  honour ;  and  that 
could  not  be  taken  from  us.  If  it  were 
true  that  the  battle  is  lost,  we  should 
have  the  great  consolation  of  dying  with 
faces  toward  the  foe  and  with  scorn  of 
fear.  The  pessimism  in  which  a  great 
deal  of  modern  art  is  steeped  is  the 
cursing  of  those  who  cannot  look  fate  in 
the  face.  The  air  of  the  last  two  decades 
has  been  filled  with  the  cries  of  the  panic- 
stricken,  the  defeated,  the  disheartened. 
"  The  old  sources  of  hope  are  lost,"  they 
tell  us  ;  "  the  old  leaders  are  shown  to 
?76 


Health  and  Courage 

have  been  mistaken ;  the  old  faiths  were 
lies ;  the  old  enthusiasms  are  dead :  we 
are  defeated  and  the  cause  is  lost." 
Well,  if  there  are  those  who  believe  all 
this,  let  them  go  to  the  rear  in  silence, 
and  give  their  places  to  men  who  have 
courage  even  if  they  have  lost  hope. 
Cowardice  is  contagious,  like  other  forms 
of  disease,  and  this  generation  has  shown 
at  times  the  influence  of  panic-fear.  It 
has  been  assailed  from  all  quarters  by  the 
cries  of  the  sick,  the  morbid,  the  insane, 
to  such  a  degree  that  its  nerves  have  been 
shaken.  Many  of  those  who  are  fleeing, 
and  cursing  or  lamenting  as  they  flee, 
have  never  been  on  the  firing  line  ;  they 
have  caught  the  contagion  of  fear,  and 
are  striving  to  escape  from  they  know 
not  what. 

If  the -^k,  the  morbid,  the  insane,  the 
egotists,  and  the  cowards  would  go  quietly 
to  the  rear,  humanity  would  discover  anew 
the  strength  and  the  sweetness  of  life. 
The  foe  would  still  be  in  the  field ;  there 
would  still  be  vicissitudes  and  chances  of 
277 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

disaster ;  but  there  would  be  the  majesty 
of  a  great  cause,  the  consciousness  of  a 
noble  opportunity,  the  sense  of  a  supreme 
and  compelling  duty.  When  the  brave 
are  in  command,  it  is  easy  to  die,  if  death 
is  the  only  alternative.  Men  do  not  need 
a  better  order  of  life ;  they  need  health, 
and  the  courage  which  comes  from  health. 
Emerson  prayed  for  health  and  a  day  ; 
many  men  have  the  day,  but  lack  the 
health.  Here  and  there  over  the  field 
a  man  of  health  makes  his  fight,  and 
straightway  men  take  heart,  gather  about 
him,  charge  with  him,  and  die  heroically 
by  his  side.  Such  men  point  the  way  and 
reveal  the  real  conditions  of  life  ;  they  are 
the  truth-tellers.  If  Christ  possessed  no 
other  authority  than  that  derived  from  his 
blameless  and  heroic  life,  his  testimony 
might  be  set  against  that  of  all  the  mor- 
bid, the  diseased,  the  blind,  and  the  evil- 
minded  who  have  borne  witness  to  the 
futility  of  virtue  and  efix)rt.  In  knowl- 
edge of  life  it  is  spiritual  rectitude  and 
insight  which  count ;  numbers  have  no 
278 


Health  and  Courage 

significance.  If  we  are  to  suffer,  let  us 
suffer  as  He  did,  in  sublime  silence;  if 
we  are  to  be  scourged  and  rejected,  let 
us  keep  our  spiritual  dignity  amid  the 
squalor  of  sin ;  if  we  are  to  die,  let  us 
die  for  and  with  our  race.  Such  a  bear- 
ing plucks  the  bitterness  out  of  sorrow 
and  makes  death  a  revelation  of  immor- 
tality. And  such  a  bearing  translates  life 
into  a  speech  full  of  spiritual  reality  and 
promise. 


2  79 


^< 


chapter  XXXVI 

The  Ideal  in  the  Actual 


THE  "pattern  in  the  mount"  was 
the  Hebrew  phrase  for  the  sub- 
lime conception  of  life  which  the  Greek 
found  in  Plato's  philosophy ;  the  con- 
ception which  makes  all  mortal  things 
symbols  of  immortal  ideas,  and  the  whole 
material  creation  the  sign  and  disclosure 
of  a  spiritual  order.  This  is  the  open 
secret  of  all  the  great  prophetic  and  crea- 
tive spirits  ;  this  is  the  spring  whence 
has  flowed  that  stream  of  poetry  which 
has  so  often  refreshed  the  soul  of  the 
race  ;  this  is  the  source  of  that  hope  and 
courage  which  have  made  the  teachers  in 
every  generation  willing  to  endure  hard- 
ship and  bear  the  sorrows  of  misunder- 
standing and  rejection  if  to  a  few  they 
might  give  assurance  of  the  reality  of  the 
280 


The  Ideal  in  the  Actual 

Unseen  and  the  power  of  the  Invisible. 
The  type  may  be  as  crude  and  clumsy  as 
were  the  first  wooden  pieces  of  Faust  and 
Gutenberg,  but  if  the  thought  be  deep 
and  great  the  imperfection  of  the  medium 
through  which  it  finds  its  way  to  the 
mind  is  of  small  account ;  the  conditions 
in  which  we  pass  this  mortal  life  may  be 
hard  and  uncongenial,  but  if  they  convey 
spiritual  truths  to  us,  and  make  us  aware 
of  spiritual  realities,  it  were  cowardly  to 
complain  and  ignorant  to  rebel.  The 
wise  traveller,  to  whom  the  great  scenery 
or  the  great  art  of  the  world  is  accessible, 
does  not  waste  his  time  on  the  discom- 
forts of  travel  nor  allow  his  thoughts  to 
dwell  on  the  shortcomings  of  his  inn. 
The  measure  of  a  man's  soul  is  his  ability 
to  disregard  the  hindrances  and  concen- 
trate his  energy  on  the  achievement;  to 
put  aside  the  accidents  of  a  relation,  a 
work,  an  opportunitv,  and  grasp  the 
reality.  If  there  is,  as  a  wise  poet  has 
told  us,  a  soul  of  goodness  in  things  evil, 
there  is  much   more  certainly  a  soul   of 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

beauty  within  the  form  of  all  relations 
and  duties  and  works  ;  and  he  who  is 
able  to  carry  all  his  relationships,  duties, 
and  work  to  the  mount  where  the  pat- 
terns are,  to  the  light  of  the  spiritual 
order  where  these  mortal  things  instantly 
put  on  immortality,  has  read  the  open 
secret  and  pierced  the  mystery  of  life. 

This  is  idealism  pure  and  simple  ;  and 
this  statement  of  the  habit  of  all  men  of 
insight,  imagination,  and  devotion  shows 
how  completely  idealism  is  woven  into 
the  very  fabric  of  daily  living.  It  is  often  . 
spoken  of  as  if  It  were  visionary  and  un- 
real ;  a  beautiful  mirage  which  the  imagi- 
nation creates  for  its  comfort  along  the 
hard  horizon  lines  of  experience  ;  an  Illu- 
sion to  which  the  poetic  temperament 
becomes  a  willing  victim.  It  Is,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  "  human  nature's  daily 
food ;  "  that  aspect  of  the  order  of  life 
which  makes  it  intelligible  and  endurable; 
that  great  and  inspiring  fact  which  makes 
it  possible  for  us  to  live  and  move  and 
have  our  being.  If  this  irradiation  of 
2S2 


The  Ideal  in  the  Actual 

the  facts  of  existence  by  spiritual  ideas 
were  suddenly  withdrawn,  the  race  would 
sink  in  despair;  tor  while  we  work  with, 
and  too  often  for,  the  material,  we  live 
in  the  spiritual.  If  this  soul  of  life  took 
its  flight,  the  body  of  life  —  its  works, 
ways,  tendencies,  relations  —  would  turn 
to  foul  corruption.  When  idealism  van- 
ishes from  the  home,  and  parents  cherish 
their  children  for  their  wages,  and  chil- 
dren care  for  their  parents  for  the  sake 
of  protection,  there  is  no  longer  a  fam- 
ily ;  there  is  simply  a  collection  of  greedy, 
heartless  human  beings  feeding  upon  each 
other.  ;  When  the  man  cares  for  the 
woman  because  she  makes  him  comfort- 
able, and  the  woman  lives  with  the  man 
because  he  supplie^  her  needs,  marriage 
becomes  degrading.)  When  the  citizen 
sees  in  his  country  only  an  organized 
opportunity  to  make  and  keep  money, 
patriotism  becomes  "  the  last  refuge  of  a 
scoundrel ;  "  when  the  Church  is  used  for 
social  or  commercial  advantage,  hypocrisy 
puts  on  its  vilest  disguise  ;  when  man 
283 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

courts  his  fellow  for  the  profit  he  can 
make  out  of  the  acquaintance,  the  sweet- 
est relationship  becomes  mere  bartering. 
It  is  the  soul  in  a  man  which  keeps  his 
body  from  corruption;  when  the  soul 
passes,  the  garment  it  wd^e  must  be  put 
out  of  sight.  It  is  the  soul  in  relation- 
ship and  work  which  keeps  them  from 
corruption  ;  when  the  soul  goes  out  of 
them,  they  instantly  turn  to  vileness  and 
decay.  It  is  the  soul  of  the  man  recog- 
nizing and  dealing  with  the  soul  of  rela- 
tions, works,  and  things  which  keeps  life 
clean  and  pure  ;  and  this  is  idealism. 

Our  spiritual  progress  is  to  be  measured 
by  the  clearness  with  which  we  discern 
the  ideal  in  our  relationships  and  work, 
and  the  completeness  with  which  we 
address  ourselves  to  them.  Growth  in 
any  kind  of  work  is  conditioned  on  fidelity 
to  an  advancing  ideal ;  or,  to  be  more 
exact,  upon  increasing  clearness  of  dis- 
cernment of  an  ideal.  This  is  the  secret 
of  that  divine  discontent  which  drives  the 
thinker,  the  teacher,  and  the  artist  steadily 


The  Ideal  in  the'  Acutal 

on  into  fresh  labours,  new  undertakings, 
and  larger  responsibilities.  From  the 
thoughts  of  such  men  mere  idleness  of 
life  completely  vanishes;  to  make  achieve- 
ment a  ground  of  ease,  as  men  make 
the  amassing  of  a  fortune  an  occasion  of 
retiring  from  activity,  does  not  occur 
to  them.  Achievement,  to  such  spirits, 
means  occasion  for  more  exacting  work 
and  opportunity  for  more  patient  fitting 
of  means  and  skill  to  finer  ends.  Those 
who  interpret  this  inability  to  rest  in 
work  accomplished  as  an  expression  of 
mere  restlessness  of  spirit,  misread  the 
very  nature  of  man  and  misinterpret  the 
significance  of  the  world.  If  the  earth 
and  the  things  it  offers  were  simply  for 
the  using  of  the  body,  and  had  no  min- 
istry for  the  spirit,  these  blind  leaders  of 
the  blind  would  be  wise  leaders  ;  for  in 
a  world  which  existed  only  in  and  for  the 
senses,  and  perished  with  the  perishing 
of  the  senses,  it  would  be  idle  "  to  strive, 
to  seek,  to  find,  but  not  to  yield."  But 
Shakespeare,  Homer,  Dante,  Chaucer, 
285 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

saw  the  splendour  of  meaning  that  plays 
over  the  visible  world  ;  knew  that  "  a 
tree  had  another  use  than  for  apples,  and 
corn  another  than  for  meal,  and  the  ball 
of  the  earth  than  for  tillage  and  roads  : 
that  these  things  bore  a  second  and  finer 
harvest  to  the  mind,  being  emblems  of 
its  thoughts,  and  conveying  in  all  their 
natural  history  a  certain  mute  commen- 
tary on  human  life."  The  man  dies 
within  us  when  we  are  willing  to  accept 
ease  instead  of  growth,  and  pleasure  in- 
stead of  truth.  Because  everything  a 
man  touches  discloses  the  presence  of  an 
idea  within  its  structure,  therefore  he 
only  is  wise  who  in  touching  things  can- 
not rest  until  he  reaches  the  ideas  behind 
them.  Thus  the  world  becomes  a  great 
wonderland  through  which  the  wise  are 
glad  to  travel,  though  often  weary  and 
footsore,  for  the  sake  of  that  knowledge 
which  feeds  the  mind  and  that  wisdom 
which  nourishes  and  enriches  the  spirit. 
And  this  is  the  joy  of  work  :  that  as  one 
does  it  with  fidelity  its  soul  becomes 
2S6 


The  Ideal  in  the  Actual 

clearer,  and  one  must  shape  the  body 
with  ever-increasing  skill  and  love  to 
contain  and  reveal  the  soul.  The  artists 
know  the  sorrow  and  the  joy  of  this  im- 
mortal hunger  to  give  the  soul  form  with- 
out concealing  it.  This  it  is  which  makes 
life  one  long,  eager  pursuit,  one  long, 
passionate  labour. 

If  this  is  true  of  work,  it  is  still  more 
true  of  relationships.  The  tie  that  binds 
two  human  beings  together  must  unite 
their  spirits  if  it  is  not  to  corrupt  or 
weaken  them  ;  and  our  relations  with  one 
another  are  helpful  and  beautiful  and  en- 
during in  the  exact  degree  in  which  they 
contain  and  disclose  the  ideal.  If  we 
understood  this  great  law  of  life,  there 
would  be  fewer  shattered  homes  and 
broken  friendships.  In  the  stress  of 
daily  life  and  under  its  strain  we  need 
constant  and  clear  recognition  of  the 
spiritual  qualities  of  the  ties  that  hold  us 
together  in  home  and  friendship.  The 
beauty  of  the  relationship  between  the 
man  and  the  woman  has  been  touched  a 
2S7 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

thousand  times  in  art,  but  it  has  never 
been  revealed  ;  it  is  known  only  to  those 
who  share  in  its  possession.  When  the 
relationship  is  a  constant  opportunity  for 
courtesy,  thoughtfulness,  tenderness,  and 
that  unconscious  expression  of  reverence 
which  is  an  instinctive  recognition  of  the 
divine  in  the  human,  it  evokes  the  deep- 
est beauty  in  character  and  creates  a 
hunger  for  spiritual  perfection  v/hich  in 
turn  gives  the  relationship  increasing 
depth  and  more  inclusive  range  and  in- 
fluence. Secret  and  sacred  places  lie  in 
the  way  of  such  a  recognition  of  a  human 
relationship  that  its  responsibilities  are 
lightened  by  perfect  comprehension,  its 
contact  with  material  work  and  duty 
irradiated  by  steady  recognition  of  spirit- 
ual opportunity,  and  its  daily  experience 
touched  with  that  tenderness  which,  like 
a  warm  sun,  evokes  the  shyest  and  most 
delicate  growths  of  love  out  of  the  places 
where  they  hide  in  the  depths  of  the 
soul.  And  who  that  has  a  friend  of  the 
spirit  does  not  know  the  joy  of  that 
288 


The  Ideal  in  the  Actual 

mutual  recognition  of  the  ideal  which 
binds  men  together  for  all  service  and 
truth  and  growth  ?  There  is  a  friend- 
ship which  counts  what  it  gives  and 
what  it  gets  ;  and  there  is  a  friendship 
which,  in  the  unlocking  of  perfect  trust, 
surrenders  itself  in  absolute  candour,  con- 
sciousness, and  spiritual  rectitude ;  which 
has  the  courage  of  love,  the  endur- 
ance of  love,  and  the  patience  of  love. 
This  is  the  fruit  of  the  perfect  union  of 
the  actual  with  that  ideal  which  is  the 
only  reality. 


19  289 


Chapter  XXXVII 

The  Loneliness  of  Life 

IT  is  significant  that  greatness  of  all 
kinds  involves  loneliness ;  a  certain 
sense  of  isolation  and  separation  seems 
to  cling  to  superiority  of  all  sorts.  The 
mass  of  the  mountain  lifts  itself  into  clear 
sunlight,  but  also  into  silence  and  soli- 
tude. One  never  realizes  how  murmur- 
ous with  sound  the  sheltered,  fertile 
world  is  until  he  has  climbed  above  the 
reach  of  these  companionable  voices  into 
the  zone  of  silence.  The  ocean  is  at 
times  all  tumult  and  breaking  seas,  but  in 
quietude  its  vastness,  and  in  storm  its 
fury,  fill  one  with  a  deep  sense  of  lone- 
liness — 

The  moaning  of  the  homeless  sea. 

A  great  career  conveys  the   same   sense 

of  separation,  and  a  great  man  gains  his 

290 


The  Loneliness  of  Life 

majesty  of  outline  because  he  seems  to 
be  separated  from  his  kind.  The  great 
man  knows  his  kind  and  Hves  with  them 
as  the  lesser  man  does  not  and  cannot; 
but  the  scope  of  his  experience  and  the 
clearness  of  his  insight  take  him  out  of 
the  easy  range  of  his  fellows'  interests 
and  understanding.  Even  when  the 
great  man  is  surrounded  by  kindred 
spirits  he  seems  to  stand  alone ;  as  the 
peaks  of  the  mountain  range,  although 
grouped  by  the  eye  into  a  sublime  fel- 
lowship, are  isolated  from  one  another. 
The  great  work  of  art  has  something  in- 
communicable about  it ;  a  quality  which 
keeps  one  from  too  intimate  approach 
and  holds  its  secret  intact  against  the 
most  assiduous  seekers.  We  never  feel 
that  we  have  quite  mastered  the  Divine 
Comedy  or  Hamlet  or  York  Minster  or 
Tristram  and  Isolde:  there  is  something 
in  such  works  which  eludes  and  baffles  us. 
And  in  every  deep  experience  there  is  the 
sense  of  loneliness.  We  stand  at  a  distance 
from  Socrates  as  he  drinks  the  hemlock, 
291 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

from  Sir  Thomas  More  as  he  lays  his 
head  on  the  block,  from  Wolfe  as  he  lies 
on  the  plains  of  Abraham ;  and  those 
who  have  loved  Christ  most  deeply  have 
held  back  from  intruding  at  Gethsemane. 
A  great  superiority  of  any  kind  brings 
loneliness  with  it,  and  the  distance  it  tra- 
verses away  from  com^mon  standards  and 
skills  is  exactly  registered  by  its  deepening 
sense  of  detachment  and  solitude.  This 
sense  of  loneliness  is  the  price  we  pay  for 
personality;  for  individual  consciousness, 
pov/er,  and  hfe;  it  is  both  the  price  and  the 
promise  of  immortality.  Self-conscious- 
ness is  possible  only  through  detachment 
and  isolation;  and  the  richer  and  fuller 
the  content  of  consciousness,  the  more 
distinct  the  lines  which  demark  and  dif- 
ferentiate it.  The  sense  of  loneliness 
which  attaches  to  greatness  is  significant 
of  that  detachment  which  must  be  se- 
cured before  a  high  degree  of  development 
is  compassed  ;  its  roots  are  in  the  richest 
possibilities  of  our  nature ;  its  pervad- 
ing presence  is  indicative,  not  of  pathos 
292 


The  Loneliness  of  Life 

and  limitation,  but  of  the  greatness  of 
life.  Loneliness  comes,  it  is  true,  with 
loss,  sorrow,  and  calamity;  it  is  one  of 
the  heaviest  burdens  of  grief  This  kind 
of  loneliness  is  easily  explicable  ;  it  is  the 
universal  loneliness  which  is  misunder- 
stood and  misinterpreted.  Its  pathos  has 
found  haunting  sadness  of  imagery  in 
the  verse  of  Matthew  Arnold: 

Yes !   in  the  sea  of  life  enisled. 

With  echoing  straits  between  us  thrown. 

Dotting  the  shoreless  watery  wild. 
We  mortal  millions  live  alone. 

The  islands  feel  the  enclasping  flow. 

And  then  their  endless  bounds  they  know. 

But  when  the  moon  their  hollows  lights 
And  they  are  swept  by  balms  of  spring. 

And  in  their  glens,  on  starry  nights, 
The  nightingales  divinely  sing ; 

And  lovely  notes,  from  shore  to  shore. 

Across  the  sounds  and  channels  pour  — 

Oh  !   then  a  longing  like  despair 
Is  to  their  farthest  caverns  sent. 

In  these  lines   one  of  the  truest  elegiac 

poets  has  touched  the  very  heart  of  the 

293 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

mystery;  for  the  sense  of  loneliness  is 
never  so  penetrating  as  when  joy  presses 
vainly  against  the  barriers  of"  speech; 
when  the  imagination  dilates  to  its  utmost 
limits  in  the  presence  of  beauty  of  sound 
or  sight  or  speech  which  goes  home  to 
the  inaccessible  place  in  which  we  live ; 
when,  in  a  word,  the  immortal  part  of  us 
beats  in  vain  against  the  limitations  of 
our  mortal  condition. 

In  all  deep  affection  there  is  a  passion 
for  possession  which  is  never  satisfied, 
because  there  is  something  sacred  and 
incommunicable  in  the  personality  of 
one  we  love;  and  there  is  a  passion  for 
speech  which  is  always  denied,  because 
we  cannot  find  language  for  the  deepest 
that  is  in  us.  Our  souls  are  greater  than 
our  vocabularies ;  we  cannot  put  into 
words  that  which  is  too  deep  and  inclu- 
sive for  human  speech.  At  the  best  we 
can  only  make  signs  to  one  another;  if 
we  could  speak  adequately,  there  would 
be  no  mystery  and  immortality  in  love. 
If  we  could  perfectly  possess  one  an- 
294 


The  Loneliness  of  Life 

other,  there  would  be  no  divinity  in 
love ;  that  which  makes  it  possible  for  us 
to  serve  and  sacrifice  for  one  another,  to 
exchange  help,  strength,  and  sweetness, 
makes  it  also  impossible  for  us  to  merge 
into  one  another.  The  richer  the  power 
of  loving,  the  clearer  the  distinction  of 
individuality  between  the  lover  and  the 
loved;  to  have  the  capacity  of  loving  the 
race  one  must  have  a  divine  personahty. 
It  is  through  our  differences  even  more 
than  through  our  similarities  that  we 
aid  and  enrich  one  another.  Matthew 
Arnold  was  not  blind  to  the  source  of 
the  separation  of  man  from  man ;  he 
closes  his  pathetic  and  beautiful  repre- 
sentation of  human  loneliness  with  words 
which  clearly  declare  the  truth  even  while 
they  miss  its  deepest  significance : 

A  God,  a  God  their  severance  ruled  ! 
And  bade  betwixt  their,  shores  to  be 
The  unplumb'd,  salt,  estranging  sea. 

The  possession  of  personality,  with  its 
sublime  inferences  of  God,  freedom,  re- 
295 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

sponsibility,  development,  and  immor- 
tality, brings  with  it  inevitably  that  sense 
of  separation  and  isolation  which  is  the 
source  of  loneliness  ;  and  this  sense  is 
deepened  by  the  conditions  under  which 
personality  is  heightened  and  unfolded. 
As  love  is  too  great  for  speech,  and 
leaves  a  pain  in  the  heart,  so  the  indi- 
vidual spirit  is  too  great  for  its  mortal 
conditions,  and  carries  with  it  every- 
where a  sense  of  detachment.  There 
are  moments  when  everything  seems 
smitten  with  unreality;  the  significant 
experience  which  sometimes  overtook 
the  prince  in  Tennyson's  "  Princess," 
and  sometimes  overtook  the  poet  him- 
self: 

.    .   .    questionings 
Of  sense  and  outward  things. 
Fallings  from  us,  vanishings ; 
Blank  misgivings  of  a  Creature 
Moving  about  in  worlds  not  realized. 

Heaven  not  only  "  lies  about  us  in  our 

infancy,"    but    enfolds    us    through    the 

whole  journey  of  life.     The  two  worlds 

296 


The  Loneliness  of  Life 

in  which  we  Hve  are  not  separated  from 
one  another  by  a  vast  gulf;  they  are 
continually  mingling  and  merging  in  a 
thousand  mysterious  ways.  We  pass 
fi-om  one  to  another  as  we  pass  from 
room  to  room  ;  we  are  one  moment  in 
the  physical  and  the  next  in  the  spiritual. 
We  are  constantly  refashioning  the  en- 
vironment of  our  souls  ;  constantly  read- 
justing the  claims  and  relations  of  the 
seen  and  the  unseen,  the  earthly  and  the 
heavenly.  Hence  the  sense  of  unreality 
which  often  smites  our  visible  surround- 
ings ;  the  sense  of  detachment  from  them 
which  comes  when  we  seem  to  possess 
them  most  securely.  There  are  days 
when  the  world  and  our  work  in  it  seem 
so  remote  that  we  are  hardly  conscious 
of  touching  either ;  we  seem  to  be  mov- 
ing about  in  a  realm  of  shadows,  our- 
selves the  only  realities. 

And  in  this  endeavour  of  the  individual 

soul   to   live   in   two  worlds  at  the  same 

moment,  through  a  process  of  continual 

readjustment,  there  must  come  also  the 

297 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

sense  of  loneliness  which  arises  from  our 
inability  to  understand  ourselves  and 
others.  We  are  continually  baffled  and 
oppressed  by  our  self-ignorance ;  our 
inability  to  see  clearly  what  is  taking 
place  in  our  own  spirits  and  happening 
in  our  own  lives.  The  sense  of  loneli- 
ness which  comes  to  one  in  a  foreign 
country  is  greatly  intensified  if  one  does 
not  speak  the  language.  There  are  few 
experiences  more  baffling  than  to  be  with 
people  who  are  friendly  and  companion- 
able and  yet  to  be  shut  off  from  all  com- 
munication with  them.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  very  few  men  speak  the  same  lan- 
guage ;  so  diverse  are  our  inner  natures, 
so  divergent  our  instincts  and  inheri- 
tances, so  far  apart  our  temperaments, 
that  words  do  not  have  the  same  mean- 
ings for  us.  The  deepest  things  in  our 
lives  never  rise  into  the  region  of  articu- 
late expression  ;  and  of  the  things  that 
may  be  spoken,  few  ever  get  clear,  dis- 
tinct, and  complete  utterance.  Moving 
in  worlds  not  clearly  realized ;  among 
298 


The  Loneliness  of  Life 

those  whose  deeper  experiences  are  inac- 
cessible to  us,  as  ours  are  inaccessible  to 
them  ;  speaking  different  languages  even 
while  we  seem  to  be  using  the  same 
words ;  emphasizing  the  differences  be- 
tween us  by  the  very  process  of  unfold- 
ing and  perfecting  our  own  natures  —  is 
it  surprising  that  we  are  lonely  even  with 
those  who  love  us  most  tenderly  and 
loyally  ?  And  yet,  who  would  give  up 
the  possibilities  of  greatness  or  avoid  the 
solitude  of  the  mountain,  the  sublimity 
of  the  sea,  the  noble  work  of  art,  the 
sublime  experience,  because  loneliness 
issues  out  of  the  heart  of  these  ultimate 
creations  or  reaches  of  achievement  ?  In 
the  loneliness  which  comes  with  great- 
ness there  is,  moreover,  the  promise  of 
perfect  companionship. 


299 


Chapter  XXXVIII 

The  Moral  Order 

ONE  of  the  most  painful  riddles  of 
life  is  presented  by  the  moral  con- 
fusion which  pervades  society ;  the  ap- 
parent escape  of  evil-doers,  the  apparent 
failure  of  those  who  strive  to  do  well. 
This  is  the  aspect  of  the  mystery  of  evil 
which  most  sorely  perplexes  men  and 
presents  the  greatest  obstacle  to  faith. 
"  How  can  sin  go  unpunished  under  the 
government  of  a  righteous  God  ?  "  is  a 
question  which  has  been  put  in  many 
languages  by  multitudes  of  men  since  the 
beginning  of  time.  The  more  deeply 
men  have  loved  goodness  and  the  more 
passionately  they  have  searched  for  God, 
the  more  keenly  have  they  felt  the  dis- 
sonance between  the  idea  of  God  as  it  lay 
reflected  in  their  own  souls  and  the  dis- 
300 


The  Moral  Order 

torted  image  of  God  reflected  in  the  dis- 
order of  the  world.  This  perplexity  and 
pain  which  the  lack  of  harmony  between 
a  divine  ideal  of  righteousness  and  the 
condition  of  society  has  brought  to  the 
most  sensitive  spirits  is  itself  one  of 
the  evidences  of  the  divine  birth  of  the 
soul.  The  instinctive  feeling  that  a 
righteous  society  in  a  righteous  world 
is  inevitable  if  there  be  a  righteous  God, 
and  that  the  apparent  prosperity  of  evil 
in  the  world  is  at  variance  with  the  exist- 
ence of  such  a  God,  evidences  the  pres- 
ence of  ideals  in  the  soul  which  are  not 
born  amid  human  conditions.  So  long 
as  evil  remains,  men  ought  to  feel  per- 
plexed and  unhappy,  because  between 
the  thought  of  God  and  the  presence 
of  evil   there  is  a  deep  gulf  fixed. 

But  there  is  a  radical  distinction,  often 
overlooked,  between  moral  confusion  and 
moral  anarchy.  The  two  are  constantly 
confused,  and  yet  they  are  very  different 
in  nature  and  in  fact.  Some  men  are  in 
the  habit  of  assuming  that  because  there 
301 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

is  disorder  in  society  there  is  no  exe- 
cution of  moral  law,  and  consequently 
no  evidence  of  the  presence  of  God  in 
the  affairs  of  life ;  sensitive  spirits  are 
often  driven  to  something  like  despair 
by  the  apparent  impunity  of  those  who 
do  evil.  There  is  a  pessimism  abroad 
which  teaches  the  doctrine  of  moral  indif- 
erence.  "Avoid  evil,"  it  says,  "  because 
evil  is  vulgar,  ill-bred,  and  unbecoming ; 
but  do  not  look  for  its  punishment  in 
others.  The  easy  road  to  success  is 
through  some  form  of  respectable  fraud. 
They  who  do  good  and  good  only  will 
have  the  approval  of  their  consciences, 
but  they  need  expect  nothing  else.  To 
become  rich  one  must  be  grasping ;  to 
gain  popularity  one  must  flatter  and  lie ; 
to  secure  recognition  one  must  study 
how  to  please  rather  than  how  to  give 
one's  power  the  most  genuine  and  noble 
expression."  This  philosophy,  so  read- 
ily accepted  by  those  who  look  at  the 
surface  and  do  not  penetrate  the  depths, 
would  be  true  if  there  were  no  God.  It 
302 


The  Moral  Order 

is  a  very  superficial  form  of  atheism  ;  and 
it  evaporates  like  a  mist  the  moment  one 
sees  the  problem  clearly  and  sees  it  in  its 
entirety.  The  riddle  of  the  existence  of 
evil  will  never  be  solved  in  this  stage  of 
life,  although  there  are  many  side-lights 
which  suggest  that  its  darkness  is  impene- 
trable only  from  our  present  point  of 
view ;  but  the  riddle  of  the  impunity  of 
the  violator  of  the  moral  law  is  a  riddle 
in  appearance  only,  and  ceases  to  perplex 
the  moment  the  confusions  of  traditional 
thinking  on  the  subject  are  cleared  away. 
That  freedom  of  action  must  be  con- 
ceded if  there  are  to  be  moral  results 
achieved  in  life,  and  that  men  must  have 
liberty  of  choice  between  evil  and  good 
if  character  is  to  be  developed,  are  obvi- 
ous ;  a  moral  world  involves  the  possi- 
bility of  choosing  the  evil  in  preference 
to  the  good ;  for  without  freedom  there 
is  neither  moral  responsibility  nor  moral 
growth,  and  freedom  cannot  be  provided 
for  man  without  permitting  the  existence 
of  evil.  The  breaking  of  the  moral  law  is 
303 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

not  inconsistent  with  the  rule  of  a  right- 
eous and  omnipotent  God.  If,  however, 
sin  goes  unpunished,  the  moral  structure 
of  life  breaks  down  ;  one  sin  overlooked 
and  forgotten  would  dethrone  God. 
For  God's  rule  of  righteousness  must  be 
without  break  or  limitation ;  it  must  be 
as  absolute  as  his  own  nature.  It  is  the 
perception  of  this  fact  that  makes  the 
apparent  impunity  of  the  evil-doer  so 
perplexing  and  at  times  so  appalling. 
The  perplexity  exists,  however,  chiefly 
in  our  inadequate  Idea  of  punishment. 
The  world  Is  full  of  moral  confusion,  but 
there  Is  no  moral  anarchy.  So  long  as 
law  Is  Inflexibly  executed  there  may  be 
many  law-breakers  and  much  lawlessness, 
but  there  is  no  anarchy.  Anarchy  exists 
only  where  the  law  fails  of  execution. 
Now,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  no  sin  has  gone 
unpunished  since  time  began ;  no  act  of 
greed,  brutality,  dishonesty,  Impurity, 
has  ever  failed  to  work  Its  Instantaneous 
effect  on  the  wrong-doer.  Like  our 
pagan  ancestors,  we  are  always  expecting 
304 


The  Moral  Order 

to  see  the  infliction  of  some  external 
penalty  ;  for  to  most  of  us  punishment 
is  something  which  happens  to  a  man. 
We  are  still  waiting,  after  all  these  cen- 
turies, as  our  fathers  waited,  to  see  the 
anger  of  the  gods  take  some  visible 
shape ;  we  listen  for  the  sound  of  the 
Furies'  wings  in  swift  pursuit,  and  when 
no  crushing  penalty  falls  like  a  thunder- 
bolt from  heaven,  we  charge  another 
failure  of  justice  against  the  moral  struc- 
ture of  the  world.  Society  appears  to 
be  full  of  men  who  have  escaped  the 
penalties  of  wrong-doing  and  are  enjoy- 
ing its  fruits. 

But  God's  conception  of  punishment 
differs  fundamentally  from  our  concep- 
tion. Punishment,  in  his  view,  is  not 
something  which  happens  to  a  man  ;  it 
is  far  more  searching  and  terrible,  for  it 
is  something  which  happens  in  a  man. 
No  external  system  of  justice  is  necessary 
in  order  to  bring  a  man  to  justice ;  the 
moral  system  of  life  works  automatically 
and  inexorably.  What  a  man  does  in- 
20  305 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

stantly  reacts  upon  his  nature,  and  he 
becomes  the  product  of  his  deeds.  If 
a  man  could  escape  by  the  loss  of  an  eye 
or  an  arm,  it  would  be  art  easy  escape  ; 
but  there  is  no  escape  from  the  action  of 
the  moral  nature ;  the  doer  and  the  deed 
are  bound  together  forever :  there  is  no 
pause  for  a  dramatic  arraignment  and 
conviction,  no  postponement  of  penalty 
until  another  life;  the  evil  deed  works  its 
effect  the  instant  it  is  committed.  Dante, 
surveying  the  world  under  "  the  aspect 
of  eternity,"  saw  that  sin  and  its  punish- 
ment are  bound  together  in  time  as  well 
as  in  space.  In  this  present  life  men  are 
already  in  hell  or  purgatory  or  heaven. 
The  appalling  fact  about  life  is  not  its 
moral  indifference,  but  its  moral  inexor- 
ableness.  Behind  every  act,  no  matter 
how  insignificant,  God  seems  to  be 
standing,  and  everything  we  do  becomes 
part  of  us.  We  are  better  or  worse  every 
hour  ;  we  are  never  morally  stationary, 
because,  whether  we  think,  speak,  or  act, 
we  are  fashioning  ourselves  and  making 
306 


The  Moral  Order 

our  destiny.  We  cannot  escape  the 
searching  processes  of  life ;  there  is  no 
moral  neutrality  possible.  The  universe, 
as  David  long  ago  declared,  is  not  vast 
enough  to  afford  a  hiding-place  from 
God. 

We  could  bear  the  spectacle  of  men 
maimed  and  physically  disfigured  by 
their  sins;  what  we  cannot  bear  is  the 
moral  disintegration  which  silently  de- 
stroys them.  There  is  nothing  more 
tragic  than  the  lingering  death  of  a 
human  spirit  while  the  body  still  lives 
and  thrives  ;  the  loss  of  honour,  honesty, 
purity,  sweetness;  the  relentless  decay  of 
all  that  is  sound  and  beautiful  in  man's 
nature  and  life.  If  one  who  has  access 
to  a  library  commits  an  offence  against 
it,  he  is  deprived  of  its  privileges;  that 
is  the  human  way  of  inflicting  punish- 
ment. The  divine  way  is  very  different; 
the  offender  is  not  disturbed,  the  doors 
remain  open  to  him,  he  comes  and  goes 
as  before,  but  he  becomes  blind!  The 
treasures  of  the  library  slowly  fade  from 
307 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

him  ;  his  vision  grows  more  and  more 
indistinct,  until  it  fails  and  he  sees  no 
more.  This  is  the  appalling  fate  which 
befalls  the  evil-doer.  God  does  not 
need  to  watch  him  nor  keep  record  of 
his  life ;  he  is,  in  his  own  nature,  the 
most  delicate,  sensitive,  and  infallible  of 
registers.  Whether  he  knows  it  or  not, 
he  is  every  day  gaining  or  losing  in  clear- 
ness of  vision ;  he  is  becoming  finer, 
truer,  larger,  or  he  is  becoming  coarser, 
falser,  smaller. 


308 


Chapter    XXXIX 

Religion  Out-of-Doors 

A  SCOTCH  Highlander,  old,  worn, 
and  poor,  was  in  the  habit  of  going 
every  morning  a  little  distance  from  his 
cottage  and  standing  there,  unbonneted, 
for  a  few  minutes.  When  asked  one 
day  by  a  friend,  who  came  upon  him 
and  waited  until  he  had  covered  his 
head  and  turned  his  eyes  away  from  the 
hills,  if  he  were  saying  his  prayers,  he 
replied,  with  a  rare  smile  :  "  I  have  come 
here  every  morning  for  years  and  taken 
off  my  bonnet  to  the  beauty  of  the 
world."  It  was  an  untaught  man's  ex- 
pression of  that  deep  poetry  which  runs 
through  the  Celtic  race  like  a  vein  of 
gold ;  and  it  was  also  a  primitive  act  of 
worship.  The  splendour  of  God  on  the 
face  of  the  earth  is  always  to  be  seen 
309 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

reverently  and  adoringly  ;  and  only  they 
attain  the  true  spirit  of  worship  to  whom 
the  silent  aisles  of  the  woods  are  as  sacred 
as  the  pillared  aisles  of  the  church,  and 
the  autumnal  glory  shining  on  the  hills 
as  much  a  symbol  of  the  presence  of 
God  as  the  altar  fragrant  with  the  breath 
of  flowers  and  beautiful  with  the  light 
of  painted  windows  or  of  shining  tapers. 
For  the  earth  is  the  Lord's,  and  the  ful- 
ness thereof,  though  we  are  slow  to  learn 
and  swift  to  forget. 

It  is  easier  to  define  God  than  to  real- 
ize his  presence ;  to  confine  him  to  places 
than  to  believe  in  his  omnipresence  ;  to 
limit  him  to  times  than  to  know  that  all 
times  are  in  his  hand  ;  to  draw  a  circle 
round  his  love  than  to  discern  that  its 
circumference  lies  outside  the  universe. 
A  large  part  of  the  history  of  human 
thinking  is  a  record  of  painful  and  con- 
scientious endeavour  to  compress  God 
into  the  categories  of  human  thought,  and 
to  make  his  character  comprehensible  by 
making  his  motives  like  our  own,  only 
310 


Religion  Out-of-Doors 

larger.  The  theologians  have  divided 
the  heritage  of  infinite  love  among  men 
according  to  their  own  preconceptions  or 
the  limitations  of  their  own  minds,  and 
have  forgotten  the  absolute  equality  of 
the  sons  of  God ;  the  ecclesiastics  of  all 
shades  and  schools  have  claimed  exclu- 
sive authority  to  speak  for  the  Infinite, 
although  all  languages  and  symbols  are 
impotent  to  express  His  nature ;  and 
good  people  of  every  generation  and 
faith  have  identified  God  with  certain 
agencies  of  obvious  prosperity  and  ex- 
cluded him  from  all  others,  and  have 
limited  him,  with  sincere  but  mistaken 
zeal,  to  certain  times  and  places.  And 
so  religion  has  come  to  be  ritual  instead 
of  character ;  worship,  the  adoration  of 
the  Unseen  at  some  special  place  instead 
of  a  constant  and  universal  reverence ; 
piety  has  taken  on  professional  forms, 
and  has  a  language  of  its  own,  instead  of 
being  the  perfect  flowering  of  a  man's 
nature  and  the  natural,  simple,  universal 
speech  of  the  soul  ;  and  God  has  been 
311 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

shut  out  of  a  large  part  of  his  world,  in- 
stead of  pervading  and  transforming  it. 

Tennyson,  who  was  a  man  of  religious 
as  well  as  of  poetic  genius,  once  said  that 
people  had  come  to  think  of  God  as  a 
kind  of  gigantic  clergyman  ;  so  far  have 
men  wandered  from  the  thought  which 
Christ  revealed.  It  is  the  greatest  sin 
of  ecclesiasticism  that  it  turns  into  a  pro- 
fession that  which  ought  to  be  the  deep- 
est and  simplest  life  of  every  man  born 
into  this  world. 

To  those  who  long  passionately  for  a 
vision  of  God  as  great  and  divine  as  that 
which  is  reflected  in  the  Gospels,  Nature 
is  a  constant  refuge  from  the  small  inter- 
pretations, the  narrow  limitations,  the 
divisive  ideas  too  often  heard  in  the 
churches.  One  goes  out-of-doors  after 
many  sermons,  and  draws  a  deep  breath, 
and  feels  that  he  has  gone  from  the  pres- 
ence of  a  finite  into  that  of  an  infinite 
God.  There  comes  in  such  a  moment  a 
great  sense  of  joy  that  the  littleness  of 

human   thought  and   the   narrowness  of 
312 


Religion  Out-of-Doors 

human  sympathies  are,  after  all,  powerless 
to  limit  God  ;  one  listens  and  is  almost 
overcome  for  the  moment  by  vigour  of 
presentation  or  array  of  authorities,  but 
he  goes  out  under  the  pure  heavens,  and 
the  fog  which  seemed  to  be  settling  over 
the  race  disappears  like  a  morning  mist. 
Nature  supplies  the  compensation  for 
the  purely  eccleslastital  view,  and  cor- 
rects the  vicious  tendency  to  conceive  of 
God  professionally.  Those  who  look  at 
the  movement  of  thought  with  some 
spiritual  insight,  and  therefore  with  some 
divination  of  the  future,  are  assured  that 
for  this  reason  science  will  presently 
appear  to  have  been  the  greatest  ally 
and  friend  of  religion  in  this  century. 
When  the  tendencies  of  contemporary 
thought  lie  clearly  marked  in  the  full 
knowledge  of  the  future,  it  will  be  seen 
that  science  has  secured  modifications  of 
the  ecclesiastical  ideas  of  God's  will, 
God's  law,  and  God's  relation  to  the 
world,  and  his  way  of  working  in  it, 
which  are  one  and  all  in  the  direction  of 
313 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

a  more  deeply  religious  conception  of 
the  universe.  Nature  will  finally  strike 
a  balance  with  ecclesiasticism,  and  the 
churches  will  stand,  not  as  sentinels 
challenging  the  world  about  them,  but, 
like  many  of  the  English  cathedrals, 
crowning  the  heights  with  an  architecture 
both  material  and  spiritual,  which  not 
only  harmonizes  with  the  landscape,  but 
forms  its  spiritual  centre  and  interpreter. 
The  view  of  God  which  one  gets  out- 
of-doors  is  less  open  to  the  danger  of 
moral  perversion  than  that  which  one 
gets  under  some  church  roofs;  for  Nature 
is  not  only  impartial,  but  she  is  also  inex- 
orable. The  man  who  breaks  her  law 
always  pays  the  penalty;  there  are  no 
exceptions;  she  is  absolutely  and  impar- 
tially just.  No  sentimentalism  obscures 
her  vision  or  deflects  her  purpose ;  no 
ritual  act  secures  exemption  from  pen- 
alty. The  seed  which  a  man  sows  he 
reaps,  and  no  other ;  the  deed  which  a 
man  does  reacts  upon  him,  and  no 
other;  the  work  which  a  man  performs 
3'4 


Religion  Out-of-Doors 

feeds  him,  and  he  is  fed  in  no  other  way. 
To  go  out-of-doors  from  the  teaching 
of  some  pulpits  is,  therefore,  to  get  not 
only  a  rational  but  a  moral  view  of  life; 
it  is  not  only  to  have  one's  view  broad- 
ened, but  it  is  also  to  have  it  clarified. 

There  is  no  conflict  between  the  house 
which  men  set  aside  as  a  visible  symbol 
of  the  glory  of  God  and  for  their  adora- 
tion of  him,  and  that  vast  world  which 
is  the  work  of  his  hands,  and  which 
reveals  his  will  in  every  law  and  his 
presence  in  every  force ;  but  there  is  an 
irrepressible  conflict  between  the  purely 
professional  idea  of  God  and  of  religion 
taught  in  some  pulpits  and  the  concep- 
tion which  is  born  of  a  knowledge  of 
God's  world.  The  Church  is  enfolded 
by  Nature,  not  separated  from  it. 


315 


Chapter  XL 

The  Word  in  the  Book 

IT  is  pitiful  to  read  the  story  of  man's 
heroic  and  pathetic  attempt  to  im- 
poverish his  world  and  his  life  by  expel- 
ling God  from  one  province  after  another, 
until  Nature  was  denuded  of  divinity, 
art  lost  to  the  soul  which  craves  the 
image  of  its  own  beauty  and  the  emblems 
of  its  own  immortality,  science  shut  out 
on  the  threshold  from  the  home  it  would 
have  lighted,  warmed,  and  protected  ! 
For  centuries  there  was,  as  the  result  of 
an  inadequate  conception  of  the  universe 
and  of  the  divine  nature,  a  persistent 
endeavour  to  circumscribe  the  spirit  of 
revelation  within  the  limits  of  a  single 
literature,  to  identify  beauty  and  pleasure 
with  evil  tendencies  and  instincts,  and  to 
exclude  the  order  and  majesty  of  the 
316 


The  Word  in  the  Book 

visible  world  from  the  fellowship  of  the 
influences  which  minister  to  the  soul. 
But  it  was  quite  impossible  to  exclude 
God  from  His  world,  and  the  great  spir- 
itual fact  of  the  last  two  centuries  has 
been  the  recovery  of  noble  territories  to 
the  sovereignty  of  God  and  the  uses  of 
the  soul.  Once  more  the  light  plays 
over  the  whole  surface  of  life  Instead  of 
over  a  little  section  of  Its  vast  expanse ; 
nature  becomes  a  symbol  and  a  revelation 
of  the  Infinite;  art  is  the  Word  using  the 
forms  and  speech  of  beauty  ;  and  human 
history  is  one  unbroken  disclosure  of 
spiritual  order  and  of  the  destiny  of  the 
human  spirit  under  historic  conditions. 
When  Petrarch  brushed  aside  the 
webs  of  artificial  interpretation  which 
monkish  teaching  and  mediaeval  specu- 
lation had  spun  over  the  texts  of  the 
great  writers  of  antiquity,  and  read  his 
Virgil  as  the  living  work  of  a  living  soul, 
he  not  only  set  the  great  tides  of  modern 
life  In  motion,  but  he  made  himself  the 
representative  of  modern  men  by  per- 
317 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

forming  a  symbolic  act :  in  rediscovering 
the  human  in  the  literature  of  antiquity- 
he  rediscovered  the  divine.  It  is  often 
assumed  that  men  needed  for  their  guid- 
ance and  growth  only  the  revelation  of 
the  divine ;  but  the  revelation  of  the 
divine  would  be  incomprehensible  with- 
out the  revelation  of  the  human,  and  we 
should  be  incapable  of  comprehending 
God  if  we  had  not  a  certain  measure  of 
knowledge  of  ourselves.  The  spiritual 
history  of  the  race  is  to  be  found  in  this 
double  revelation ;  this  continuous,  in- 
terwoven, inseparable  disclosure  of  the 
nature  of  God  and  the  nature  of  man. 
Along  these  two  lines  of  discovery  the 
mind  of  the  race  has  made  its  real  prog- 
ress and  registered  its  real  achievement ; 
for  the  measure  of  man's  real  achievement 
in  his  earthly  life  is  the  measure  of  the 
knowledge  of  God  which  he  has  attained, 
and  the  reflection  of  that  knowledge  in 
his  life.  The  Bible  is,  in  a  unique  de- 
gree, the  revelation  of  the  nature  of 
God ;  but  it  is  also  the  revelation  of  the 
318 


The  Word  in  the  Book 

nature  of  man,  and  no  one  can  under- 
stand it  who  does  not  understand  how 
completely  it  has  its  roots  in  the  soil  of 
human  history,  and  how  deeply  it  is  pene- 
trated and  permeated  by  influences  that 
rise  out  of  human  character  and  condi- 
tions. The  significance  of  this  complete 
commingling  of  the  divine  and  the  human 
we  have  not  yet  fully  mastered ;  it  is 
one  of  the  deepest  and  one  of  the  most 
luminous  of  the  mysteries  which  make 
us  aware  of  the  spiritual  greatness  of 
life. 

The  great  books  into  which  men  have 
poured  the  energy  of  their  souls,  and  in 
which  they  have  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously uncovered  the  secrets  of  their 
hearts,  are  not,  therefore,  in  the  deepest 
analysis,  products  of  individual  genius 
and  fruits  of  individual  art ;  they  are  the 
sacred  records  of  the  revelation  of  the  soul 
of  the  race.  He  who  opens  them  opens 
that  sublime  Bible  of  humanity  which  is 
one  long  and  luminous  interpretation  of 
that  other  Bible  which  was  also  the  work 
319 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

of  prophets,  poets,  and  teachers.  The 
plays  of  Shakespeare  form  one  of  the 
richest  and  most  vital  commentaries  on 
the  Old  Testament  and  the  New ;  and 
the  student  who  has  not  discovered  the 
wonderful  play  of  light  from  one  to  the 
other  has  not  gotten  to  the  heart  of 
either  of  the  two  aspects  of  the  one  com- 
plete disclosure  of  truth.  For  no  truth 
is  ever  understood  when  it  is  detached 
from  the  divine  order  in  which  it  be- 
longs. The  Bible,  studied  apart  from 
history,  nature,  art,  and  science,  has 
been  grossly  misunderstood  ;  and  the 
attempt  to  comprehend  Nature  and  Art 
apart  from  the  play  upon  them  of  the 
light  of  the  spirit  has  been  equally  mis- 
leading and  disastrous. 

The  first  step  toward  a  real  understand- 
ing of  literature  is  not  technical  but  spir- 
itual preparation  ;  it  is  not  a  mastery  of 
forms,  but  an  insight  into  the  soul  which 
inhabits  and  fashions  the  form.  To 
study  the  Book  of  Job,  the  epics  which 
bear  the  name  of  Homer,  the  "  Divine 
320 


The  Word  in  the  Book 

Comedy,"  the  plays  of  Shakespeare,  and 
the  great  works  of  fiction,  as  If  they 
were  only  splendid  pieces  of  artistic  skill, 
superb  triumphs  of  expression,  is  to  cut 
the  roots  of  their  greatness  and  rob  them 
of  their  significance.  They  were  con- 
ceived in  the  depths  of  the  human  soul, 
in  the  greatness  of  its  human  sorrow  and 
toil,  and  they  were  born  in  the  secret 
places  of  the  souls  of  the  great  artists 
whose  names  they  bear.  This  is  their 
inner  history  and  the  explanation  of  their 
spiritual  power  and  significance.  And  it 
is  because  of  this  deep,  invisible  unity  of 
origin  that  one  great  voice  answers  to 
another  from  age  to  age  and  from  litera- 
ture to  literature,  reaching  us  through 
all  differences  of  tongue  and  speaking  a 
common  language  to  the  whole  race.  As 
there  are  differences  of  mood  and  mes- 
sage between  Moses,  Isaiah,  and  David, 
and  St.  Paul  and  St.  John,  and  yet  es- 
sential harmony  of  truth,  so  there  are 
wide  differences  of  temper,  form,  and 
accent     between     Homer,     Shakespeare, 

21  221 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

Browning,  and  Emerson,  and  yet  funda- 
mental harmony  of  disclosure.  They  all 
speak  to  the  human  spirit  of  the  things 
which  make  its  life. 

Out  of  the  depths  of  that  vast  con- 
sciousness which  has  received  and  pre- 
served all  that  has  happened  to  the  race, 
its  deep  experiences,  its  prime  necessities, 
its  irrepressible  aspirations  —  the  sub- 
stance and  soul  of  its  being  —  have  risen 
into  clear  view  in  the  great  works  of  art, 
as  the  seeds  buried  in  the  darkness  of 
the  earth  climb  into  sunlight  and  witness 
to  their  hidden  vitality  in  flower  and 
fruit.  And  this  deep  inward  life,  strug- 
gling always  toward  harmony  with  itself 
and  its  world,  and  instinctively  seeking 
that  perfection  which  is  at  once  its  jus- 
tification and  the  visible  proof  of  its 
immortality,  has  sought  and  found  the 
language  of  art;  that  final  speech  in 
which  thought  and  insight  and  life  attain 
ultimate  clearness  and  beauty.  And 
because  man  cannot  speak  of  himself  in 
any  moment  of  insight  without  speaking 
322 


The  Word  in  the  Book 

of  God,  cannot  disclose  the  structure  of 
his  own  nature  and  the  order  of  his  own 
life  without  revealing  the  purpose  and 
spirit  of  the  Infinite,  therefore  the  great 
art  of  the  world  —  to  the  fashioning  of 
which  all  passion  and  prayer  and  deed 
and  skill  have  gone  —  is  the  revelation 
of  God  as  well  as  of  man. 

There  are  certain  words  of  St.  Augus- 
tine which  lead  us  to  the  very  heart  of 
this  conception  of  the  inevitable  discovery 
of  God  to  man  in  every  real  disclosure 
of  man  to  himself:  "  Since,  then,  I  too 
exist,  why  do  I  seek  that  Thou  shouldest 
enter  into  me,  who  were  not,  wert  not 
Thou  in  me  ?  Why  ?  because  I  am  not 
gone  down  into  hell,  and  yet  Thou  art 
there  also.  For  if  I  go  down  into  hell. 
Thou  art  there.  I  could  not  be  there, 
O  my  God,  could  not  be  at  all,  wert 
Thou  not  in  me ;  or,  rather,  unless  1 
were  in  Thee,  of  whom  are  all  things, 
by  whom  are  all  things,  in  whom  are 
all  things.  Even  so.  Lord,  even  so. 
Whither  do  I  call  Thee,  since  I  am  in 
323 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

Thee  ?  or  whence  canst  Thou  enter  into 
me?  for  whither  can  I  go  beyond  heaven 
and  earth,  that  thence  my  God  should 
come  into  me,  who  hath  said,  /  Jill  the 
heaven  and  the  earth  ?  " 


324 


chapter  XLI 

The  Record  in  Art 

ONE  of  the  most  inspiring  achieve- 
ments of  modern  thought  is  the 
recovery  of  the  growing  world.  To 
the  first  makers  of  poetry  —  the  myth- 
makers —  nature  was  alive  to  the  very 
recesses  of  the  created  universe ;  the 
world  was  flooded  with  life ;  streams 
and  valleys,  deep  woods  and  mountain 
summits,  the  dim  foundations  of  the  sea 
and  the  mysterious  depths  of  caverns, 
were  the  homes  of  living  creatures  — 
beautiful  for  the  most  part,  but,  whether 
beautiful  or  otherwise,  full  of  an  over- 
flowing vitality.  In  the  childhood  of 
the  race  men  were  limited  by  the  igno- 
rance of  children  and  blest  with  their 
wisdom  —  the  wisdom,  not  of  obser- 
vation, experience,  and  meditation,  but 
of  fresh  feeling,  of  direct  vision,  and  of 
325 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

the  free  and  joyous  movement  of  the  im- 
agination. They  were  at  work  in  the 
world  under  hard  conditions,  but  they 
still  had  that  spirit  of  play  without  which 
there  is  no  fresh  contact  with  nature,  no 
joy  in  toil,  and  no  touch  of  the  creative 
mood  in  the  work  of  the  hands.  The 
myth-makers  played  with  the  world  be- 
cause it  was  full  of  an  abounding  life  ; 
stars,  winds,  tides,  storms,  the  songs  of 
birds,  the  murmur  of  branches,  spoke 
different  languages,  but  the  free  imagina- 
tion understood  all  these  strange  tongues 
and  employed  them  at  will.  It  caught 
glimpses  of 

Proteus  rising  from  the  sea. 
Or  heard  old  Triton  blow  his  wreathed  horn  ; 

it  heard  the  revel  of  the  Bacchanals  ;  it 
came  breathless  and  awe-struck  upon 
"  the  great  god  Pan  ;  "  it  caught  sudden 
glimpses  of  naiads,,  dryads,  nymphs,  and 
satyrs;  it  heard  the  voice  of  Apollo. 
And  this  hidden,  mysterious,  half-spiritual 
movement  of  life  was  not  the  idle  dream 
326 


The  Record  in  Art 

of  the  wise  children  of  those  early  days  ; 
it  was  the  poetic  personification  of  the 
streaming  life  of  a  growing  world. 

And  then  the  dream  faded,  and  the 
race  grew  old  in  thought.  The  sins  of 
its  youth  were  brought  home  to  it ;  and 
in  the  first  hours  of  its  repentance  it 
turned  away  from  nature,  and  nature 
turned  to  the  ashes  of  dead  matter ;  the 
living  world  ceased  to  be  in  the  thought 
of  mediaeval  men  and  women  ;  or  such 
life  as  lingered  in  it  was  baneful  and  mal- 
evolent. They  saw  a  finished  mechanism 
in  place  of  a  rushing,  tumultuous,  shining 
stream  of  life  ;  a  creation  which  God  had 
completed  centuries  before,  set  in  motion, 
and  left  to  the  governance  of  arbitrary 
laws.  So  the  beautiful  old  world  which 
lay  in  the  imagination  of  the  myth-makers 
perished  ;  the  incomplete,  growing  world, 
through  which  the  creative  energy  freely 
manifested  itself,  ceased  to  be ;  and  the 
world  of  dead  matter,  completed  and  me- 
chanically kept  in  motion,  took  its  place. 
But  the  living  spirit  of  man  could  not 
327 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

long  believe  in  a  dead  world  or  a  finished 
creation ;  the  pulse  of  life  in  nature  was 
so  audible  that  every  poetic  soul  heard  it, 
and  even  in  the  darkest  hour  of  the  im- 
prisonment of  the  soul  in  dungeons  of  its 
own  making  there  were  bird-notes  which 
broke  the  silence  and  flashes  of  light 
which  pierced  the  darkness,  and  the  sen- 
sitive and  open-minded  heard  and  saw 
and  understood.  In  the  later  and  larger 
search  of  science  the  traces  and  signs 
of  God  at  work  began  to  multiply,  until 
in  the  mind  of  the  scientist,  as  earlier  in 
the  mind  of  the  poet,  there  slowly  dawned 
the  sublime  truth  of  the  growing  world : 
the  world  sown  as  a  seed  and  silently  ex- 
panding and  blossoming  through  count- 
less summers,  and  bearing  the  fruit  of 
countless  generations ;  the  world  of  the 
living  God  —  his  vesture  and  garment  — 
instinct  with  his  life,  overflowing  with  his 
creative  power ;  the  world  which  was  not 
made  but  is  being  made ;  the  unfinished 
world  of  perpetual  miracle  and  wonder 
and  revelation.  This  sublime  world  of 
328 


The  Record  in  Art 

living  beauty  and  force  is  the  witness  and 
record  of  the  continuous  putting  forth  of 
the  creative  energy  of  God. 

And  the  response  of  the  spirit  of  man 
to  this  continuous  putting  forth  of  the 
creative  energy  of  God  is  registered  and 
preserved  in  great  art.  Whenever  men 
cease  to  be  artisans,  with  skilful  but  imi- 
tative fingers,  and  begin  to  express  what 
is  characteristic  and  original  in  their  own 
personalities,  they  become  artists;  for  no 
man  can  arrive  at  complete  self-expression 
without  transforming  the  materials  with 
which  he  works  into  things  of  beauty  and 
of  power.  The  source  of  human  creative- 
ness  is  personality.  That  hidden,  elusive, 
but  imperishable  vitality  in  the  soul  of 
man  is  a  force  which  assimilates,  discerns, 
comprehends,  and  creates ;  and  whenever 
this  force  expresses  itself  adequately,  the 
work  of  art  is  produced.  For  art  is  not 
artifice,  contrivance,  skill ;  it  is  the  ex- 
pression of  the  spiritual  nature  in  a  free, 
spontaneous,  creative  mood.  It  is  beau- 
tiful ;  for  beauty  is  the  language  in  which 
329 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

truth  speaks  when  it  reaches  its  ultimate 
perfection  of  expression  ;  but  the  beauty 
which  shines  in  it  is  born  not  only  of  the 
body  but  of  the  spirit,  not  only  of  the 
hand  but  of  the  soul.  Whenever  truth 
is  so  far  mastered  that  it  attains  perfect 
clearness  and  harmony,  it  uses  the  lan- 
guage of  art.  Art  is  not,  therefore, 
decoration,  embellishment,  adornment  — 
a  loveliness  added  to  truth  ;  it  is  truth 
working  its  way  through  all  material 
forms  into  final  and  perfect  speech. 

Art  sometimes  reveals  poverty  of  spir- 
itual ideas,  and  sometimes  expresses  the 
lower  rather  than  the  higher  ideals ;  not 
because  beauty  lends  itself  by  choice  to 
the  sensuous  or  the  corrupt,  but  because 
the  creative  energy  which  it  reveals  some- 
times ebbs.  The  art  of  a  period  does 
more  than  reflect  its  spiritual  quality ; 
it  exactly  measures  and  reveals  it,  and  is 
noble  or  ignoble  in  theme  and  manner 
as  the  soul  of  the  time  stoops  or  rises. 
But  whether  touched  with  the  fathomless 
beauty  to  which  great  spirits  have  access, 
330 


The  Record  in  Art 

or  bound  within  the  limits  of  that  lesser 
beauty  of  form  and  colour  within  whose 
circle  the  lesser  spirit  confines  itself,  it 
is  always  and  everywhere  the  register  of 
the  creative  energy  and  activity  of  man. 
A  great  spirit  like  Michelangelo  or  Dante 
will  use  a  great  language  ;  a  smaller  spirit 
like  Bouguereau  or  Verlaine  will  use  a 
lesser  vocabulary  ;  but  in  the  lesser  as  in 
the  greater  work  there  is  the  evidence  of 
an  energy  which  has  the  touch  of  creative- 
ness.  The  creative  power  in  men  ebbs 
and  flows  under  the  influence  of  laws  and 
conditions  not  yet  mastered;  but  what- 
ever creative  power  there  is  in  men  at  any 
period  finds  its  way  into  some  form  of 
art;  and  art  has,  therefore,  a  significance 
which  most  men  have  yet  to  comprehend. 
It  runs  parallel  with  the  divine  creative- 
ness  in  nature,  and  is  the  response  of  the 
soul  to  the  revelation  of  the  Artist  who 
fashioned  it,  not  only  to  obey  His  laws, 
but  to  co-operate  with  Him  in  the  con- 
tinuous putting  forth  of  creative  power. 
A  divine  world  must  be  incomplete ;  it 
331 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

must  be  in  the  process  of  making,  unless 
God  is  ceasing  to  act.  A  great  man  does 
not  produce  a  masterpiece  and  cease  from 
working ;  there  is  an  impulse  within  him 
which  impels  him  to  add  one  noble  work 
to  another,  not  because  men  applaud,  but 
to  ease  his  own  spirit.  Because  man  is 
made  in  the  image  of  the  divine  Maker  he 
must  always  add  truth  to  truth  in  an  un- 
ending series  of  beautiful  works.  So  men 
rise  into  higher  and  more  complete  har- 
mony with  the  Infinite.  They  cannot 
rest  in  knowledge  of  His  laws  and  in 
obedience  to  them ;  they  must  share  His 
thought  and  find  adequate  language  for 
it.  Humanity  must  co-operate  with  the 
divine  creativeness  and  match  God's  work 
in  nature  with  its  own  work  in  art.  Who- 
ever looks  into  the  soul  of  the  art  of  the 
world  from  this  point  of  view  will  get  at 
least  a  glimpse  of  the  inner  relation  be- 
tween nature  and  art,  and  understand  why 
men  have  felt  instinctively  that  art  not  only 
secures  immortality  for  those  who  create 
it,  but  predicts  immortality  for  the  race. 
332 


Chapter  XLII 

Beauty  and  Immortality 

HUMAN  development  is  so  irregu- 
lar and  so  frequently  interrupted 
by  outbreaks  of  passion  or  inroads  of 
barbarism  that  men  have  never  yet,  in 
large  masses,  at  any  one  time,  grown 
symmetrically  and  in  harmonious  com- 
pleteness. No  race  has  yet  appeared 
which  has  been  strong  enough  and  clear- 
sighted enough  to  sustain  itself  on  as- 
cending lines  of  activity  in  all  the  great 
fields  of  life  —  religion,  art,  nature,  and 
practical  affairs.  The  Hebrew  had  the 
moral  and  spiritual  sense,  but  lacked  the 
artistic ;  the  Romans  had  immense  ex- 
ecutive energy,  but  very  little  spiritual 
insight ;  the  Greek  genius  was  far  more 
highly  developed  than  Greek  character. 
And  it  was  largely  due  to  this  partial  and 
333 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

incomplete  development,  this  inability  to 
round  out  human  experience  and  hold 
the  different  sides  of  human  life  in  true 
balance  and  sound  relations,  that  the 
civilizations  of  these  gifted  and  influen- 
tial races  came  to  an  end.  These  civ- 
ilizations in  an  organic  form  ceased  to 
be,  but  each  race  contributed  something 
to  that  totality  of  civiHzation  which  is 
indestructible.  Modern  races  are,  for 
this  very  reason,  in  the  way  of  securing 
that  full  and  balanced  development  which 
will  not  only  give  free  play  to  spiritual 
energy  in  all  fields,  but  satisfy  the  soul  by 
making  its  environment  reflect  and  ex- 
press its  own  quality  and  nature.  This 
harmony  between  the  soul  and  the  forms 
of  life  about  it  has  never  yet  been  secured, 
save  for  very  short  intervals  and  by  very 
few  persons  ;  and  yet  this  correspondence 
between  a  man's  ideals  and  his  condition 
is  one  of  the  things  which  he  passionately 
craves,  and  without  which  he  is  a  stranger 
in  his  own  time  and  an  alien  among  his 
own  people. 

334 


Beauty  and  Immortality 

It  is  often  necessary  to  make  one  vir- 
tue wait  upon  another,  and  to  accept  for 
the  moment  conditions  which  would  be 
intolerable  if  they  were  permanent.  In 
time  of  war  the  customary  occupations 
are  often  suspended ;  in  camp  men  live 
without  those  accessories  which  make  up 
the  richness  of  life  ;  under  the  stress  of 
danger  they  put  aside  most  of  the  things 
they  value  for  the  sake  of  some  one  of 
the  basal  principles  or  possessions  upon 
which  civilization  rests.  It  has  happened 
more  than  once  that  the  race,  or  parts  of 
it,  have  had  to  fight  for  spiritual  life ; 
that  is  to  say,  for  freedom,  conscience, 
and  the  possibility  of  clean  living.  The 
rejection  of  beauty  by  the  early  Christians 
was  largely  due  to  the  fact  that  the  beauty 
they  saw  about  them  was  part  of  the 
structure  of  a  civilization  which  had  be- 
come not  only  corrupt  but  corrupting. 
They  put  beauty  away  because,  for  the 
moment,  they  had  to  fight  for  righteous- 
ness. And  when  conditions  arise  whfch 
compel  a  momentary  choice  between 
335 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

right  living  and  right  expression,  there 
can  never  be  a  doubt  as  to  the  right 
choice.  Men  must  be  sound  and  free 
before  they  can  make  the  expression  of 
their  life  wholesome,  noble,  and  adequate. 
It  is  well  to  remember  that  the  Christian 
revolt  against  art  was  not  made  in  a  great, 
free,  creative  epoch,  but  in  a  period  of 
decadence,  when  the  line  had  lost  its 
firmness,  the  figure  its  nobility,  the 
method  its  force  and  dignity ;  a  period 
when  art  had  become  the  servitor  of  a 
demoralized  and  declining  race. 

But  these  reactions  against  beauty, 
these  epochs  of  rejecting  its  resources, 
mark  the  exigencies  and  crises  of  civili- 
zation, not  its  full,  free,  rich  movement. 
Wars  are  interruptions  of  normal  living ; 
camps  are  tolerable  only  because  they 
are  temporary ;  and  the  end  of  all  strug- 
gling, either  by  individuals  or  by  society, 
is  to  give  life  greater  freedom  and  fullness. 
The  moment  life  is  free  to  find  full  de- 
velopment, it  seeks  beauty  as  inevitably 
and  by  as  deep  an  instinct  as  it  seeks 
33(^ 


Beauty  and  Immortality 

truth.  Right  living,  right  thinking,  right 
speaking  —  these  are  all  and  equally 
essential  to  the  life  God  meant  men  to 
live,  if  the  structure  and  needs  of  their 
natures  give  any  trustworthy  indication 
of  his  purpose.  We  are  still  so  far  from 
any  spiritual  conception  of  beauty  that 
we  are  slow  to  recognize  its  structural 
necessity  ;  we  are  so  accustomed  to  regard 
it  as  decorative,  ornamental,  external, 
that  we  fail  to  perceive  its  rootage  in  the 
spiritual  nature  and  its  place  in  the  spirit- 
ual life.  Beauty  in  visible  structure  and 
form  is  righteousness  in  structure  and 
form  ;  for  beauty  reduced  to  its  simplest 
terms  is  the  best  way  of  doing  a  thing ; 
the  best  because  the  most  adequate,  com- 
plete, and  final.  A  man  is  moral  only 
when  he  does  right  in  speech  as  well  as 
in  act ;  when  his  words  as  well  as  his 
deeds  express  the  highest  quality  of  his 
nature  and  disclose  his  conscience.  It 
is  not  irreverent  to  say  that  the  ferns 
reveal  the  conscience  of  God  as  truly 
as  the  stars  declare  his  glory.  We 
"  337 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

are  in  the  habit  of  speaking  of  Him  as 
the  Creator,  but  we  forget  that,  in  the 
very  nature  of  things,  a  divine  creator 
must  be  a  divine  artist.  God  could  not 
do  things  badly  without  violating  his 
own  nature  ;  it  is  well  to  remember  this 
fact  when  we  are  tempted  to  reject  some- 
thing in  Nature  of  which  we  do  not  see 
the  beauty.  Beauty  is  wrought  into  the 
very  structure  of  the  world,  because 
beauty  is  the  final  form  of  expression  — 
the  natural  and  only  form  in  which  God 
can  create  things.  An  ugly  world  would 
be  an  immoral  world.  Therefore  the 
ferns  reveal  the  conscience  of  God  the 
Artist,  —  the  conscience  which  takes  no 
account  of  the  possibilities  of  recognition 
and  recompense,  but  must  always  and 
everywhere  give  to  the  minutest  detail 
of  work  the  last  touch  of  perfection. 

Living  in  an  incomplete  world,  in  an 
unfinished  civilization,  and  being  our- 
selves only  sketches  and  outlines  of  what 
we  are  to  be,  we  lose,  not  the  passionate 
craving  for  beauty,  but  the  clear  percep- 


Beauty  and  Immortality 

tion  of  its  moral  necessity.  The  same 
law  which  Imposes  righteousness  upon 
us  imposes  beauty  as  well  ;  it  is  only  in 
our  blindness  that  we -separate  the  two 
or  imagine  that  there  is  antagonism 
between  them.  Beauty  is  the  highest 
form  of  righteousness,  and  until  right- 
eousness is  beautiful  it  has  not  reached 
its  highest  form.  We  are  so  accustomed 
to  righteousness  in  its  rudimentary 
forms  in  ourselves  and  others  that  we 
lose  sight  of  this  great  truth.  There  are 
times  when  partial  development  seems 
inevitable,  and  carries  with  it  an  appar- 
ent postponement  of  the  finer  forms  of 
spiritual  unfolding.  The  Puritan  was, 
at  his  best,  a  noble  figure ;  but  it  is  clear 
that  the  Puritan  was  the  man  of  a  crisis, 
not  the  master  of  a  final  and  complete 
development  of  spiritual  or  social  life. 
There  can  be  integrity  without  beautv, 
if  beauty  must  be  postponed;  but  such 
an  integrity  is  always  partial  and  prelim- 
inary ;  it  can  never  be  final.  "  The 
beauty  of  holiness "  is  not  an  empty 
339 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

phrase  ;  it  means  much  which  we  have 
not  mastered  as  yet.  For  every  knotted 
and  gnarled  character,  like  Knox  and 
Cromwell,  bent  on  doing  the  will  of 
God,  men  ought  to  be  grateful ;  such 
men  are  the  heroes  of  the  tremendous 
struggles  of  the  race  for  the  right  to  live 
freely  and  completely  ;  but  its  heroes  of 
the  freer  and  fuller  life  are  men  of  a 
higher  mould.  Beauty  is  not  always, 
under  all  conditions,  v/ithin  reach  of  the 
righteous ;  but,  after  the  struggle,  there 
must  be  other  ways  and  days  before 
them,  and  in  the  final  stages  of  their 
being  they,  too,  must  find  beauty.  Im- 
mortality must  bring  beauty  with  it. 
r'  In  so  far  as  the  saints  have  been 
unlovely,  they  have  been  undeveloped  ; 
in  so  far  as  the  heroes  have  lacked  har- 
mony and  sweetness,  they  have  lacked 
maturity  in  righteousness  and  strength. 
There  has  been  but  one  perfect  life  on 
earth,  and  the  beauty  of  that  life  was 
the  effluence  of  its  righteousness,  the  radi- 
ance of  its  divinity.  Christ  had  all  the 
340 


Beauty  and  Immortality 

strength  of  the  heroic  fighters  for  truth, 
without  a  touch  of  their  harshness  and 
unloveliness  ;  he  had  all  the  courage  of 
the  reformers,  without  a  trace  of  their 
narrowness  and  lack  of  imagination ;  he 
had  all  the  calmness  of  the  truth-seeker, 
without  a  touch  of  his  indifference  to 
individuals.  He  was  so  harmonious  that 
we  find  it  almost  impossible  to  compre- 
hend him.  He  reverses  all  the  concep- 
tions of  the  saint,  the  hero,  and  the  great 
man  that  have  been  held  from  time  to 
time ;  he  utterly  failed  to  meet  the  ex- 
pectations of  those  who  were  watching 
for  the  coming  of  a  Messiah.  So  accus- 
tomed are  we  to  imperfect  development, 
with  its  confusion  of  violence  with  force, 
of  ruthlessness  with  strength,  of  selfish- 
ness with  genius,  that  we  cannot  easily 
reconcile  the  beauty  of  Christ's  nature 
with  its  immeasurable  resources.  When 
the  creative  artist  appeared  am^ong  us, 
he  was  beautiful  because  he  was  divine. 
His  words  shared  the  beauty  of  the 
world,  and  in  parable  and  teaching  he 
341 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

associated  these  forms  with  the  spiritual 
Hfe.  Birds  and  flowers  and  stars  are  as 
much  at  home  in  his  speech  as  in  the  air, 
the  fields,  and  the  sky.  In  gesture,  deed, 
and  word  ;  in  all  the  crises  of  his  life  and 
in  the  presence  of  all  men ;  in  joy  and 
sorrow,  in  death  and  in  resurrection, 
beauty  clothed  him  like  a  garment.  As 
he  was  Truth,  so  was  he  beauty;  for 
truth,  when  it  ascends  to  the  highest 
stage  and  finds  its  final  expression,  is 
beauty. 

In  beautiful  forms,  therefore,  the  soul 
craves  the  image  of  its  own  beauty  and 
the  emblems  of  its  own  immortality. 
This  craving  is  none  the  less  real  because 
it  is  often  unintelligent ;  it  is  instinctive 
in  all  men  who  have  any  spiritual  vital- 
ity ;  and  there  are  many  to  whom  ugly 
and  inharmonious  surroundings  bring 
something  very  like  physical  pain.  Sin 
in  all  its  forms  is  hideous  ;  it  never  wears 
beauty  save  as  a  mask,  and  never  can 
wear  it  long.  In  the  exact  degree  in 
which  we  hate  sin  do  we  long  for  the 
342 


Beauty  and  Immortality 

beauty  of  holiness  ;  in  the  exact  degree 
in  which  we  long  for  perfection  do  we 
crave  that  beauty  in  form,  manner,  and 
life  about  us  which  shall  correspond  with 
the  inner  vision.  And  so  long  as  we  are 
denied  that  harmony  we  are  driven  back 
upon  ourselves  and  become  the  prey  of 
that  dissatisfaction  which  always  springs 
out  of  discord.  When  we  come  upon 
perfect  beauty  in  any  form,  a  sudden 
thrill  warns  us  that  we  are  facing  one  of 
those  last  perfect  touches  in  which  an 
idea,  a  vision,  an  experience,  Is  born 
into  and  vitalizes  a  form.  So  in  all  the 
greatest  art  we  seem  to  find  ourselves; 
and  in  finding  ourselves  we  Instinctively 
confer  immortality  upon  the  form  which 
shares  our  life.  An  artist  pours  his  life 
into  his  book,  his  statue,  his  building, 
his  painting,  with  the  conviction  that  he 
has  laid  up  for  himself  that  fame  which 
is  the  human  synonym  for  Immortality ; 
and  men  guard  and  cherish  the  perfect 
work  because,  being  perfect,  they  are 
persuaded  that  it  must  endure.  So  the 
343 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

marbles  remain  though  the  Greeks  are 
gone ;  the  Madonna  survives  though 
Raphael  has  departed  ;  the  Fifth  Sym- 
phony speaks  though  Beethoven  is  silent ; 
Westminster  abides  though  its  builders 
have  perished.  In  its  art  the  race  sees 
the  visible  emblems  of  its  immortality. 


14 


Chapter    XLIII 

The  Incident  of  Death 

WE  live  in  a  vast  order  which  not 
only  enfolds  us  but  touches  us 
every  moment  through  a  thousand  forces 
and  appearances ;  but  so  familiar  is  the 
aspect  of  things  which  surround  us  that 
only  at  rare  moments  do  we  become  con- 
scious of  this  larger  movement  in  which 
all  lesser  movements  are  included.  We 
have  only  to  look  at  the  sky  to  read  the 
sublime  evidence  that  we  are  citizens  not 
only  of  this  little  world  but  of  the  im- 
measurable universe  as  well ;  we  have 
only  to  watch  the  rise  and  fall  of  the 
tides  to  discover  afresh  the  unity  which 
binds  star  with  star  across  the  vast  dis- 
tances of  space.  The  earth  lives  mo- 
ment by  moment  because  it  is  folded  in 
the  light  and  heat  and  movement  of  the 
universe.  Every  flower  that  blooms, 
345 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

however  delicate  and  fragile,  unfolds  at 
the  bidding  of  another  world  than  that  in 
which  its  roots  are  planted ;  every  cloud 
that  floats  across  the  loveliness  of  the 
summer  day  is  soft  and  luminous  because 
the  light  of  another  world  touches  its 
innermost  haze.  We  are  affected  hour 
by  hour  by  these  remote  influences ;  we 
are  confronted  day  by  day  by  the  splen- 
dour of  the  universe ;  and  yet  we  are  often 
unconscious  of  these  larger  relations  ! 

And  it  is  well  that  we  should  be  ; 
for  our  work  for  the  day  is  here ;  and 
there  are  times  when  the  doing  of  that 
work  is  the  absorbing  duty  to  which 
everything  else  must  give  place.  When 
the  harvest  is  ripe  and  the  time  of  reap- 
ing short,  a  man  does  well  to  think  only 
of  the  field,  and  to  leave  the  landscape 
for  more  favourable  days.  There  are  days 
for  the  field,  and  days  for  the  landscape ; 
days  when  one  must  surrender  himself 
entirely  to  the  work  in  hand ;  and  days 
when  one  must  search  the  universe  and 
bring  his  life  into  harmony  with  its  laws. 
346 


The  Incident  of  Death 

There  are  near  duties  and  remote  rela- 
tions ;  for  life  is  made  up  of  the  visible 
material  and  the  invisible  force  ;  of  words 
and  deeds  and  emotions  which  concern 
passing  circumstances  and  the  temporary- 
condition,  and  of  other  words,  deeds, 
and  emotions  which  are  evoked  by  con- 
victions regarding  the  unseen,  the  invis- 
ible, and  the  eternal.  There  is  no  deep 
life  for  any  man  unless  he  lays  hold,  in 
thought,  imagination,  and  faith,  of  the 
unseen  spiritual  universe ;  there  is  no 
real  life  for  any  man  unless  he  grasps 
with  clear  discernment  and  steady  will  the 
conditions  which  surround  him.  The 
problem  which  a  man  must  solve  is  to 
bring  the  power  of  faith  in  the  unseen 
order  to  which  his  spirit  is  allied  to  bear 
in  dealing  with  the  material  world  to 
which  his  body  is  akin.  So  familiar  is 
this  visible  world  of  work  and  duty  and 
human  ties  that,  though  a  man  believe 
in  the  invisible  spiritual  order,  it  is  often 
difficult  for  him  to  rest  in  it  and  live  by 
it ;  as  difficult  as  it  is  for  him  to  feel  the 
347 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

reality  of  the  universe  when  his  hands 
and  thought  are  absorbed  in  the  field 
where  the  harvest  waits  for  his  reaping. 

Sometimes  these  wider  connections  of 
his  life  are  suddenly  brought  to  his  con- 
sciousness by  an  unusual  event  in  the 
physical  world.  An  observer  has  made 
record  of  the  extraordinary  impression 
made  upon  him  while  watching  an  eclipse 
from  the  summit  of  the  Rigi.  Looking 
down  on  that  noble  landscape  at  mid- 
day, he  saw  it  darkened  by  the  vast 
shadow  of  the  moon  passing  over  the 
sun's  disc  and  moving  across  field  and 
lake  and  mountain  as  if  it  were  obliterat- 
ing the  earth.  Here  was  a  visible  result 
of  interplanetary  action;  a  sudden  and 
convincing  demonstration  of  the  kinship 
of  star  with  star.  Across  the  quiet  land- 
scape of  the  earth  a  shadow  from  the 
universe  seemed  to  be  silently  flung. 

In   like  manner,  in  great  and  unusual 

experiences,  the  vastness  of  man's  life  is 

sometimes   impressively    brought  hom.e, 

and   on  the  instant  eternal-relations  blot 

34S 


The  Incident  of  Death 

out  time-relations ;  the  prospective  of 
time  is  exchanged  for  the  perspective  of 
eternity,  and  a  man  sees  events  in  their 
real  relations  and  order.  This  is  espe- 
cially true  of  that  mysterious  experience 
which  we  call  death.  As  the  days  come 
and  go  in  the  customary  course  of  work 
and  duty  and  love,  death  seems  like  an 
awful  discord.  When  it  comes  to  those 
who  stand  near  us,  it  seems  like  an  inex- 
phcable  interruption  of  the  order  of  life  ; 
a  swift  and  irrational  interference  with 
work  and  development ;  an  awful  and, 
sometimes,  a  brutal  severing  of  ties  tender 
and  sensitive  and  sacred.  Looking  at  it 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  years  in  which 
we  live,  death  is  inexplicable ;  we  cannot 
make  ready  for  it,  nor  explain  it,  nor 
reconcile  ourselves  to  it.  It  is  only  as 
we  rise  out  of  the  visible  into  the  invisi- 
ble order  that  we  can  make  room  for  it 
and  give  it  place.  We  often  accept  it 
with  submissive  faith  ;  we  rarely  recog- 
nize it  as  a  passing  incident  in  an  un- 
broken and  endless  life. 
349 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

There  are  moments,  however,  when 
the  depth  and  greatness  of  the  experi- 
ence through  which  we  are  passing  sud- 
denly sets  our  httle  earth  in  the  shining 
order  of  the  immeasurable  universe  — 
and  then  death  has  no  terrors ;  it  be- 
comes, indeed,  so  unimportant  in  com- 
parison with  the  ends  we  are  seeking  that 
we  do  not-  give  it  so  much  as  a  thought. 
In  that  exaltation  of  emotion,  that  clarity 
of  vision,  it  takes  its  place  with  all  the 
other  normal  and  inevitable  happenings 
of  life.  The  perspective  of  eternity  is 
suddenly  substituted  for  that  of  time, 
and  a  man  becomes  conscious  of  the 
power   and  unity   of  an   endless  life. 

Schiller  said  that  death  must  be  a 
blessing  because  it  is  universal ;  we  may 
put  it  out  of  mind  and  ignore  its  pres- 
ence, but  no  man  escapes  it.  And  when 
we  remember  how  many  men  resent  it 
as  an  interference  with  their  plans,  or 
dread  it  as  the  opening  of  a  door  into  a 
room  from  which  no  voice  comes  back, 
it  is  surprising  that  men  meet  this  su- 
350 


The  Incident  of  Death 

preme  experience  so  calmly.  For  the 
vast  majority  of  men  and  women  meet 
death  not  indeed  with  welcoming  glances, 
but  with  quiet  courage.  Dr.  Johnson 
lived  in  terror  of  death,  but  when  the 
final  hour  came  he  fell  asleep  like  a  tired 
child.  In  that  last  hour  the  vision 
broadens  to  take  in  the  sweep  of  life  and 
to  recognize  death,  neither  as  the  end  nor 
even  as  the  interruption  of  the  natural 
order,  but  as  a  normal  incident.  This 
dilation  of  the  imagination,  this  swift 
substitution  of  eternal  for  time  relations, 
.is  almost  invariably  accomplished  in 
moments  of  peril.  Whenever  a  crisis 
comes  which  makes  us  aware  that  many 
things  are  worth  more  than  life  to  us, 
we  suddenly  see  persons,  events,  and 
possessions  in  true  perspective.  There 
is  no  hesitation  or  uncertainty  in  that 
moment  of  clear  vision ;  we  die  for  those 
we  love  with  the  deep  joy  which  a  spir- 
itual opportunity  always  brings  with  it. 
On  the  field  of  battle,  on  the  deck  of 
the  cruiser,  men  do  not  take  death  into 
35^ 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

account.  In  the  supreme  moment,  when 
love  of  country,  of  honour,  of  heroism, 
absorbs  the  whole  energy  of  a  man's 
spirit,  death  is  of  no  more  account  than 
an  obstacle  on  the  highway  or  the  sting 
of  a  bee  in  the  fields.  It  is  an  incident 
in  a  great  experience,  not  the  end  of  a 
career.  There  is  a  tonic  quality  in  the 
indifference  of  men  to  death  in  great 
moments.  For  while  civilization  is  to 
be  measured  by  its  care  for  human  life, 
the  greatness  of  a  man,  an  age,  or  a  race 
is  to  be  measured  by  indifference  to 
death.  Society  must  hold  every  man's 
life  sacred  in  order  that  he  may  give  it 
freely;  it  is  to  be  scrupulously  protected 
because  it  is  his  supreme  possession,  and 
therefore  the  one  supreme  sacrifice  which 
he  can  make. 


35' 


Chapter  XLIV 

Prophecies  of  Easter 

FROM  the  very  beginning  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  seemed  to  be  moving  to- 
ward some  far-ofF  great  event.  There 
was  a  current  in  his  life  which  steadily 
bore  him  onward  to  those  tremendous 
experiences  which  have  become  the 
supreme  events  in  the  history  of  the 
race.  There  was  in  the  very  beauty  of 
the  sons:  which  announced  his  birth  a 
prediction  of  the  tragedy  of  his  career. 
At  that  time  no  teacher,  human  or  divine, 
could  have  stood  for  the  gospel  of  peace 
and  good  will  without  evoking  the  hos- 
tility of  an  untaught  Vv'orld.  To  teach 
that  sublime  truth,  so  far  in  advance  of 
the  thoughts  of  men,  was  to  set  one's 
feet  toward  Calvary.  In  the  serene  pos- 
session of  that  truth  Jesus  moved  from 
23  353 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

city  to  city,  lingering  sometimes  beside 
the  lake,  resting  sometimes  on  the  moun- 
tain-side, seeking  at  intervals  the  silence 
and  solitude  of  lonely  and  desolate  places; 
touching  men's  diseased  bodies  and  sick 
souls,  and  everywhere  teaching  a  truth 
which  condemned  the  Jewish  Church 
and  pierced  Jewish  conceptions  of  life 
like  a  knife.  The  preaching  of  the  gos- 
pel on  the  lips  of  the  teacher  who  was 
not  only  to  declare  but  to  incarnate  it, 
inevitably  carried  with  it  the  bearing  of 
the  cross  and  the  wearing  of  the  crown 
of  thorns.  Christ  seemed  to  be  always 
touching  the  future.  The  descent  of 
the  dove  and  the  declaration  of  the 
voice  from  heaven  at  the  baptism  ;  the 
mysterious  temptation  ;  the  transfigura- 
tion ;  the  ministry  of  angels  in  Gethsem- 
ane  —  all  these  events  and  many  others 
revealed  the  far-reaching  spiritual  asso- 
ciations and  relations  of  his  life,  and 
prophesied  the  resurrection  and  the 
ascension. 

It  is  easy  to  read  into  the  earlier  pas- 
354 


Prophecies  of  Easter 

sages  of  a  great  life  a  significance  which 
later  years  make  clear ;  but  there  was 
something  in  Christ's  preparatory  years 
and  history  which  unmistakably  pointed 
forward,  even  when  we  put  the  final 
events  out  of  mind.  In  the  opening 
chapter  of  a  story  we  are  often  aware  of 
the  presence  of  the  tragic  element,  and 
we  know  that  great  and  terrible  experi- 
ences are  approaching.  In  the  Greek 
tragedy  the  distant  feet  of  fate  are  heard 
long  before  they  are  audible ;  in  the 
greatest  dramas  the  strife  and  storm  are 
divined  before  the  first  film  of  cloud  has 
dimmed  the  blue  overhead ;  in  certain 
temperaments  we  instantly  detect  the 
presence  of  inevitable  sorrow  ;  in  certain 
traits  of  character  we  recognize  the  ap- 
proach of  distant  successes ;  in  certain 
moral  developments  we  discern  the  com- 
ing of  strength,  peace,  and  power. 
Those  who  have  some  degree  of  spiritual 
discernment  find  the  unforeseen  in  life, 
but  nothing  of  that  irresponsible,  lawless, 
unmoral  element  which  men  call  chance. 
355 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

They  cannot  predict  events,  but  they  do 
foresee  the  course  which  character  Is  to 
pursue,  the  fruits  which  are  to  be  gath- 
ered, the  outcome  of  Hvlng.  The  hap- 
penings of  the  world  the  wise  do  not 
foresee,  but  they  can  foretell  the  fortunes 
of  the  soul.  There  is  no  mystery  about 
this  prophetic  power ;  because  the  ele- 
ment of  prophecy  is  part  of  the  order  of 
the  world. 

Nothing  stops  with  itself;  everything 
touches,  affects,  and  modifies  everything 
else.  The  world  is  full  of  Invisible  cur- 
rents set  in  motion  by  innumerable  im- 
pulses, words,  and  acts  which  have  been 
forgotten.  We  change  everything  with 
which  we  come  in  contact,  and  every- 
thing changes  us.  Influences  radiate 
from  every  personality,  are  caught  up  in 
other  streams  of  Influence,  modified,  re- 
inforced, and  sent  In  new  directions,  or 
poured  through  Invisible  channels,  for 
centuries.  Christ  lived  and  died  long 
ago  in  Judea,  an  obscure  provincial  hid- 
den In  the  very  splendour  of  Rome  ;  but 
356 


Prophecies  of  Easter 

to-day  every  art  betrays  his  influence,  all 
legislation  bears  testimony  to  his  author- 
ity, and  society  is  stirred  to  its  depths 
because  men  feel  that  there  is  a  chasm 
between  his  teachings  and  its  habits  and 
institutions.  We  know  where  things 
start ;  we  never  know  where  they  end. 
It  is  customary  to  mark  by  tablets  or 
other  memorials  the  places  where  great 
men  are  born,  but  it  is  impossible  to 
mark  the  places  where  they  cease  to  be. 
Shakespeare  was  born  in  Stratford-on- 
Avon ;  there  he  died  and  there  also  he 
is  buried;  but  the  end  of  Shakespeare  is 
not  yet,  and,  so  far  as  can  be  seen,  there 
never  will  be  an  ending  of  that  tremen- 
dous force  which  we  call  Shakespeare. 
The  place  where  Lincoln's  spirit  appeared 
on  earth  may  be  found,  but  who  knows 
the  place  where  it  will  vanish  from  the 
earth  ?  Socrates  has  more  disciples  to- 
day than  he  had  when  he  taught  in 
Athens ;  Plato  has  more  lovers  than 
when  his  friends  heard  his  voice ;  Dante 
lives,  almost  six  centuries  after  his  death, 
357 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

more  vividly,  deeply,  influentially,  than 
in  the  melancholy  years  of  his  exile. 

The  sense  of  incompleteness  clings  to 
the  tragic  as  closely  as  to  the  fortunate 
happenings  of  life.  Nothing  is  ever 
complete  in  one's  experience ;  in  every 
joy  there  is  something  which  cannot  be 
seized,  and  every  great  sorrow  has  its 
prophetic  afterthoughts.  We  are  never 
able  to  rest  in  desolation  as  a  finality; 
the  seeds  of  a  new  order  are  sown  in 
every  overthrow  of  the  old.  The  hurri- 
cane is  no  sooner  past  than  nature  begins 
to  rebuild  ;  the  walls  are  hardly  down 
before  the  ivy  silently  steals  up  the 
broken  lines  and  covers  the  wreck  with 
a  beauty  which  is  like  a  mantle  of  charity. 
No  destruction  is  final;  everything  con- 
tains the  potency  of  a  further  life ;  the 
mortal  is  everywhere  penetrated  with  im- 
mortality. To  Demosthenes  the  fall  of 
Athens  was  a  final  catastrophe  ;  in  reality 
it  was  the  beginning  of  that  leadership 
which  has  no  limits  of  time  and  which  runs 
to  the  ends  of  the  earth.  Even  in  those 
358 


Prophecies  of  Easter 

appalling  tragedies  which  leave  the  stage 
like  a  night  without  a  star  the  imagina- 
tion is  unable  to  rest  in  what  it  sees ;  it 
inevitably  searches  for  the  light  which  it 
feels  is  approaching  below  or  beyond  the 
horizon.  The  culminating  catastrophe 
of  "  King  Lear,"  the  most  colossal  of  all 
modern  tragedies,  somehow  clears  the 
air ;  we  feel  that  at  last  the  storm  has 
spent  its  force,  that  the  singing  of  the 
birds  will  be  heard  again,  and  out  of  the 
wreck  of  the  shattered  world  a  new  world 
will  rise.  More  than  this  :  we  feel  that 
the  end  is  not  yet,  but  that  on  some 
other  stage  Lear  and  Cordelia  are  to 
come  to  their  own. 

This  prophetic  quahty  in  life  has  its 
source  in  the  structure  of  things.  In  the 
career  of  Christ  it  issues  out  of  his  very 
nature.  He  is  inexplicable  if  one  at- 
tempts to  explain  him  in  terms  of  mor- 
tality and  finiteness.  He  was  in  the 
world,  but  he  was  not  of  it.  His  con- 
tacts were  with  a  larger  environment ;  he 
acted  with  reference  to  ends  which  were 
359 


Life  of  the  Spirit 

beyond  the  limits  of  time ;  he  taught  a 
truth  which  would  have  been  the  most 
colossal  of  falsehoods  if  there  had  been 
no  indestructible  spiritual  order ;  he  lived 
as  seeing  that  which  is  invisible.  The 
moment  we  come  into  his  presence  we 
are  aware  of  forces,  ends,  aims,  and  a 
spirit  which  were  not  born  in  this  world 
and  do  not  belong  to  it.  Prophecy 
issued  also  out  of  all  the  great  events  of 
Christ's  life.  The  song  of  the  angels, 
the  voice  at  the  baptism,  the  agony  in 
the  garden,  the  sublime  anguish  of  Cal- 
vary, would  have  been  inexplicable  with- 
out the  light  which  was  reflected  back 
upon  them  by  the  angels  at  the  open 
tomb  on  the  morning  of  the  resurrection. 
Such  a  nature  and  such  a  life  were  not 
formed  and  fashioned  within  the  narrow 
limits  of  time  and  space  ;  they  brought 
infinity  and  immortality  within  the  con- 
fines of  the  world.  Alone  among  men, 
Christ  has  visibly  put  on  immortality; 
but  that  sublime  truth  does  not  rest  on 
the  resurrection  ;  it  rests  in  the  very 
360 


Prophecies  of  Easter 

structure  of  man's  nature  and  life. 
Neither  is  comprehensible  without  it ; 
neither  is  ever  complete  in  itself;  both 
affirm  its  reality  and  predict  its  fuller 
disclosure.  The  risen  Christ  does  not 
stand  solitary  in  a  vast  circle  of  unopened 
graves  ;  he  is  the  visible  witness  to  the 
sublime  truth  that  the  grave  has  no  vic- 
tory and  death  no  sting ;  for  life  and  im- 
mortality are  one  and  the  same. 


361 


-   7    '-iJ/. 
IP        RBG'D  LD- 


IIKL 


•*^/&. 


L-9-35m-8,'28 


1978 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILIT 


AA    001  099  377  2 


IprVERSITY  of  CALIFOR^;ii^ 

AT 

LOS  ANGELES 

LIBRARY 


